Blue Jackets trade Oliver Bjorkstrand to Seattle Kraken

Columbus Blue Jackets right wing Oliver Bjorkstrand (28) lines up for a faceoff during the third period of the season opening NHL hockey game at Nationwide Arena in Columbus on Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021. Bjorkstrand had two goals in the 8-2 win.

The Blue Jackets addressed a salary-cap crunch by trading forward Oliver Bjorkstrand to the Seattle Kraken on Friday for a pair of draft picks.

Bjorkstrand, 27, led Columbus in goals the past three years and finished second in total scoring this past season with 28 goals, 29 assists and 57 points in 80 games.

He was dealt a couple hours after the Blue Jackets announced they’d re-signed star forward Patrik Laine to a four-year, $34.8 million contract extension. The team also signed superstar forward Johnny Gaudreau on July 13 to a seven-year contract worth $68.25 million. Those contracts put Columbus over the NHL’s $82.5 million salary cap for 2022-23 by $6.36 million, according to Cap Friendly, which used contracts for 28 players plus $441,667 the Jackets must account for next season on the buyout of former center Alexander Wennberg’s contract.

Sun., Mar. 13, 2022; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets right wing Oliver Bjorkstrand (28) celebrates after scoring during the first period of a NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Vegas Golden Knights at Nationwide Arena.

Trading Bjorkstrand, combined with other roster transactions involving players being assigned to the Cleveland Monsters, should be enough to make the Blue Jackets compliant.

“It was a difficult decision to trade Oliver, who has given so much to our organization over the past seven years,” Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said in a statement. “However, a move like this needed to be made in order for us to be salary-cap compliant after the Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine signings. We are thankful for Oliver’s many contributions to our club, on and off the ice, and wish he and his wife, Jill, all the best in Seattle.”

The return package from Seattle is a third-round pick in 2023 that originally belonged to the Calgary Flames and a 2023 fourth-round pick that originally belonged to the Winnipeg Jets.

Bjorkstrand, who didn’t immediately return a request for comment, married his wife this past weekend.

He was selected by the Blue Jackets 89th overall in the third round of the 2013 NHL draft. After making his NHL debut with Columbus in 2015, he played seven seasons with the Jackets and amassed a career scoring line of 111 goals, 123 assists and 234 points in 382 games. Bjorkstrand also worked his way into a leadership position last season as an alternate captain.

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Columbus Blue Jackets right wing Oliver Bjorkstrand (28) skates up ice during the NHL game against the Ottawa Senators at Nationwide Arena on April 22, 2022.

Bjorkstrand’s most memorable goal was scored during the Blue Jackets’ stunning sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs. After scoring on a power play in the first period of Game 4, putting Columbus up 2-0, he scored a second goal at 6-on-5 late in the second to give the Jackets a 4-3 lead shortly after Tampa Bay tied it.

They never trailed again and polished off the sweep in the third for the first playoff series victory in franchise history.

Following the Jackets’ addition of Gaudreau, Kekalainen made it clear that re-signing Laine to a multi-year extension was still the team’s goal. That meant a trade or trades would eventually be needed to comply with the league’s cap ceiling of $82.5 million for next season — a number that went up by just $1 million from last season’s cap after not rising at all from 2020-21 to 2021-22.

Pandemic-related revenue losses across the league are the reason the cap has stayed largely flat since 2020, squeezing a number of teams with multiple elite players who command large salaries. The Blue Jackets had plenty of room under the cap until the first day of free agency last week (July 13).

After first signing rugged Calgary Flames defenseman Erik Gudbranson to a four-year, $16 million deal with a $4 million annual cap charge, Kekalainen shocked the NHL by landing Gaudreau on a deal with a $9.75 million annual cap charge.

That $13.75 million combined cap charge soaked up most of the Jackets’ available salary budget, making Laine’s new deal the one that would push Columbus over the cap ceiling. That’s what ultimately forced the Bjorkstrand trade, which was made within a tough market for teams needing to offload salaries.

During recent text messages with the Dispatch, NHL executives painted a grim picture for “seller” GMs like Kekalainen. The number of teams needing trade partners to solve cap issues following the first couple days of free agency far outnumbered teams with plenty of cap space to make something work.

That’s likely why Bjorkstrand, a top-six forward in his prime with four years left on a contract with a manageable $5.4 million cap charge, was traded for such a meager return in draft assets.

Jakub Voracek and Gustav Nyquist are also trade chips, but both are in their 30s and don’t carry ne as much value to rebuilding teams with the cap space needed to absorb their annual cap charges — $5.5 million for one more season with Nyquist and two more years at $8.25 million for Voracek.

The Blue Jackets now have eight picks in the 2023 draft, including six in the first round four rounds.

bhedger@dispatch.com

@BrianHedger

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets trade Bjorkstrand to Seattle Kraken