The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Yegor Chinakhov’s Season With The Columbus Blue Jackets

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Yegor Chinakhov’s Season With The Columbus Blue Jackets

EO chikov keeps on improving with the Blue Jackets but is he doing it fast enough we’re discussing that on today’s locked on Blue Jacket you’re locked on Blue Jacket your daily podcast on the Columbus Blue Jacket Part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hello and welcome to lockon Blue Jacket Part of the lockdown podcast Network your team every today I am as always your host Jay Foster here to give you the Good the Bad and the Ugly about your favorite team and mine Columbus Blue Jackets before we get started I want to thank everyone making this your first listen of the day every single day locks and Blue Jackets is free and available on all podcast platforms and over on YouTube also let you know that today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel make every moment more because right now new customers are going to get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet just visit f.com locked on to get started and uh we’re talking about you got inov today uh who had I think a pretty good season um not the season that I think everyone wanted him to have but I think he he was a good depth option for the Blue Jackets I think he took steps forward um I just don’t know if he is part of the core of this team going forward and if he’s not part of the core of this team going forward what is his future on the team um so we’ll uh we’ll talk about all of that um I want to start off by talking about his just like his season as a whole um because he hit career highs in everything um he played 53 games which actually that was not a career high he played 62 games in his rookie season but 16 goals 13 assists 29 Points um unfortunately missed a fair amount of time with injury I feel like he broke his foot or his ankle or something and then got injured at the very end of the season didn’t play like the final month of the Season where during that time where literally everyone was injured um so only played just over half the season but was about a point every two points every three games near enough um which is again for for a guy like shikov who has struggled at times I thought was was decent he really looked like he like I said he looked like he taken steps forward this year his shot was really dangerous um was on Pace I think for like probably a 22 23 goal season if he played all 82 games um so it would have been his first 20 goal season and uh he just he looked more like the player that we saw kind of that first season in so he he was drafted and then he did a another season in the KHL and then he came over he looked a lot more like that player that we saw in that KHL season this year than we’ve seen since um obviously he was drafted in the first round as an over rager so it was his second second time through the draft uh he went 21st overall I want to say um which surprised literally everyone yeah 21st overall in 2020 which obviously was the uh the cover draft so all bets were kind of off on uh on that but looking at how um looking at how things have kind of shaken out for him so far I feel pretty good about that pick I’m just going to I’m going to pull up I’m going to pull up the NHL draft and immediately be like oh wow luku went 22nd um I don’t think I will but this was a this was a really weird this was a really weird draft like I’m looking at um guys that went in the back half of the second round and there’s the back half of the first round excuse me there’s no one here that I’m like wow I really wish we had him instead of instead of chakov like when you get into the second round there’s there’s a couple of guys there there’s guys like Brock Faber um who I who I like a lot um there’s there’s guys like Tristan Robbins who admittedly I’m biased but I like him a lot uh goalie Prospect your blumquist is uh actually who the Penguins drafted with a pick they took from Columbus via Ottawa um you know so there was like some pieces but there was no one there’s no one here that I’m looking at it and I’m like man how did the Blue Jackets not go for this guy like JJ pker I guess but I feel pretty good about taking gukov where he was and there’s no one in the next like 20 to 30 draft selections that I’m like wow how like I I don’t feel bad about about that you know and then even going into the the third round like Anyway the point of all that is I feel fine about this as a as a first round pick as a late first round pick and again this kind of goes back to I feel like people expect a first round pick to become like a Bonafide first line Superstar and like that’s just not that’s just not how it works there’s 30 of them 32 of them every year if every single one of those players turned into like a Topline forward or a Topline defenseman or whatever there would be there would be way too many players so I feel like once you get out of I feel like the top 10 should really aim for being like a top line or top pairing guy and then after that if you can get you know top six middle six whatever like and I feel like yoina car is a was a pretty solid middle six piece with potential don’t get mad me for this potential Topline upside um do I think he hits that upside not necessarily but I think the potential is definitely there especially like when you look at this guy’s shot is his biggest strength you know and so put him with someone who can pass the puck who can start the offense chikov will finish the offense you know he is he is a much much cheaper less laser focused um Patrick l and I’m not comparing the two players but they have a similar I’m not comparing the two players in terms of like he’s basically Patrick l but they have a similar footprint in terms of offense offense offense goal scoring goal scoring goal scoring you know and I think when you see you know he had he had 29 Points this year and 16 of them were goal so like fairly fairly balanced but um he’s he’s definitely a guy that leans more on his shot you know um if I’m looking at he had 110 shots this year so he’s averaging over two shots a game which honestly doesn’t sound like a lot but for the Blue Jackets is probably quite a lot you know um looking at stat-wise he was of guys that played about the same amount of time as him so that’s bu Jan who played 58 Adam fanelli who played 49 then chov at 53 he is third so fanelli had five more shots than him buenna had about 45 more shots than him while playing again in in five more games so like on on this team where you know guys the the Blue Jackets were averaging like 22 23 shots a game you know they were not getting a lot of shots in and so two shots a game from a Gala genov who played mostly on the second and third lines who didn’t get a ton of ice time um he got some uh he got more than the previous two years the average just over 15 minutes which is probably about right if I’m being honest I would have liked to see a little bit more um you know maybe closer up to the 16 16 and a half minutes maybe 17 if we’re feeling frisky um but for for what he was this year which was a middle six forward with a very good shot he delivered on that you know um I just wish he could stay healthy um and that’s not you know I don’t think he’s like injury prone or anything but the fact of the matter is his rookie season he played 62 games last year he only played 30 games 53 games this year like he’s he’s been here for three seasons and he’s only at 145 games you know that’s not even two full seasons worth spread out over three seasons so like it’s not I don’t think he’s you know made of glass like you know some like Ryan Murray is but it’s definitely something that worries me a little bit um especially on this team where you know I feel like sometimes you look at a player wrong and he gets injured so I want to talk a little bit about what his future on the team could look like he needs a new contract I want to talk about that as well so we’ll do that in just a second here on lock on Blue Jackets first I’m going to tell you about eBay Motors passion drive and patience is 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about his his season um and now unfortunately we need to talk about like what his future on the team looks like because he is stuck in that like weird space of I don’t necessarily think the blue jacket should trade him I do think that his trade value is probably highish right now and the blue jacket uh currently have I think I think when I looked at it it was 15 or 16 NHL forward um Counting of course like Patrick l who is a question mark uh and Counting um and not counting excuse me uh guys like Caron Meer who will probably not be on the team next season so lot of a lot of players for not a lot of spaces and I do wonder about chikov being like the odd man out just because is he the best fit for the third line or is he going to get dropped down like does he fit into the top nine of this team or is he going to get dropped down and you know he’s he’s not a fourth line style player he he will not Thrive there he will struggle um you know so you got to look at like right okay so your top nine we’ve got gdo Jenna fanelli marchenko cylinder Johnson L there’s seven and then you got then you know you’ve got guys like texier you’ve got neander you’ve got um ronov all of these guys are likely top nine guys as well you know and it feels it feels a little bit like not giving up on chikov necessarily but it feels like he might kind of be the odd man out might be the guy that is g to be a trade piece um he does need new contract so well that’s obviously a big question mark and I’m sure Don woodell is is working hard on on the new contract um based on just how freaking many of them he has to get through and prepare for the draft and everything so I suspect we’ll not see anything for a while but I could see you know maybe the week or so before the draft I could see contract exception starting to to trickle out depending again on who he’s who he’s focusing on which for my money is not going to beo chikov not that he’s not going to focus on him but he’s not going to be a priority in the way that like kachenko and Ken Johnson and Co Cinder are you know I think chinina chov probably lands fourth or fifth in in the line for rfas to resign um you know your your opinion may vary on on whether he’s more or less important than a guy like Alex neander who obviously came in and really blew the Blue Jackets away at the end of the end of the season and but that to me feels like okay maybe he’s a priority just because they can sign him to you know 900k for a year and and and go you know or a million dollars for a year and go um easy easy negotiation easy done you know um something to note with ginar is that he’s not eligible for arbitration so he kind of has to decide is he going to sign his qualifying offer or is he going to um is he going to try and negotiate for better you know um and I suspect honestly I would be surprised if it’s just a qualifying offer sign for a year Kick the Can to the the next season um which I mean next season you then get into things like uh ronov needs a new contract um at a needs new contract you know tasov needs a new contract like there’s next season is better there’s less key guys that need contract but still I don’t know we’ll see they’re in much better contract they’re in much better cap space than I thought they were um mainly because I screwed up and did and did my math wrong and thought that the the 8.7 for Patrick Lio was not counting against the cap right now so they had to fit that 8.7 under the cap to um to then have like 14 million or whatever to resign all of these guys they don’t that’s not true I messed up that’s my bad they do in fact have 23 and a half million to resign all of these guys so maybe they do just resign them and and see where they go but just because they have the cap space for all of them doesn’t mean that they should sign all of them you know um so that’s what I want to talk about now is could he be a trade piece and what would he be a trade piece for you know is he do they trade him and another couple of prospects for God I don’t know um I don’t think they need to trade for more defensemen I think the defensive pipeline is already kind of clogged I know that they’re looking for centers but that was under the old ownership not ownership the old management uh group and I don’t know what donwell thinks of the of the center in the center depth on this team so again it’s it’s really tough to know like what’s going to happen because I don’t know what Don woodell is going to want to do is he satisfied with the fact that you know down the middle you’ve likely got um fantilli singer ronov texier H Kali down the middle Jenna can play down the middle like are they still going to go out and try and get a center are they going to include chikov kind of as as a sweetener for a a trade like getting rid of the proov contract if they can like add a prospect in with that do they then not have to retain any money if they trade a a prospect with Elvis are they not going to have to retain money or are they going to have to retain less money like that’s kind of the deal that I can see for China COV I don’t think he gets traded on his own um but I could see them sending him as as a sweetener he’s kind of a b tier level player you know I don’t think he moves the needle much on his own but you know if you get rid of Elvis take a not a similarly bad contract but maybe a a more expensive contract for less time or a cheaper contract for more time and then send chikov as well to sweeten it maybe you don’t have to retain on Elvis maybe you can get away with with that I don’t know I still don’t know if Elvis gets traded I still think he’s on the team in October but who knows who can say um I would like them to keep iGo chikov around think I do think he does fit into my top nine uh which I think probably let’s see if I can puzzle this out uh but I think Topline like for me anyway and something you should try is gdo fanly Brindley and then your second line will have cylinder Johnson line a and then your third line the Russian line Maybe wron shikov uh marchenko and then that’s your fourth line um I would honestly go with you know that they they have Carelli under contract for a year they’ve got matchu Olivier under contract for a year um then you’ve got texier as well and like that might be my top 12 but obviously like guys I like I didn’t include Alex neander in that I think G I think marchenko deserves to play higher up in the lineup than that so and then you know that’s not counting what they do in the draft I don’t think that they draft anyone who’s ready to step into the n HL um out of out of Camp next season but you never know so I guess it kind of boils down to like guys like does does Brindley go to the AHL for some seasoning like potentially yes is L on the team potentially um do they resign neand or do they resign texier like there’s again lots and lots of moving parts and it’s so tough to predict what’s going to happen but like my knee- reaction I think is chikov gets a gets his qualifying offer he signs that I know there was some some muttering earlier in the season that he was unhappy in Columbus um I know that there’s a there’s a Twitter account I can’t remember what the the the Twitter handle is right now but they deal with they’ve been tweeting a lot about the M mitov stuff over the past couple of weeks um and they tweeted I think they literally just tweeted yo Chino car hash CBJ and then the eyes emoji the double eyes emoji um as if like hey something’s happening here but then they followed that up by saying well he’s a Russian player without a contract of course there’s going to be rumbling so like I wonder if it’s you know that it’s not impossible to think that he goes back to the the KHL I don’t like it’s it’s not likely I don’t think um but I know that there was like Rumors in you know it was around about the time I think the rumors about wron came out and said that he was homesick and that he was he was struggling in America and they wanted he wanted to go back home and then you know everyone kind of rallied around him and then very shortly after that it came out that actually chikov was unhappy in Columbus and his agent was like Making Waves about that and then chekov’s ice time went up and he stopped making waves so I guess it depends really on if the team sees him as a future piece then probably they will try to resign him and if they don’t see him as a future piece they won’t try to resign him you know that’s that’s kind of that again it’s it’s weird to for a new GM I can’t decide whether it’s better like for a new GM to come in and be like right I’ve got fresh eyes I’m going to look at the tape from all of these guys and make my decision based on that or if it’s if it would have been better for a long not a longtime GM but you know this is this is a lot of contracts for a new GM or a new to us GM um that needs to that needs to be signed so I can’t decide if it would have been better to have all of these contracts done not necessarily by Amo because I know that people are kind of tired of of yamamo and I’m not suggesting that he would be better at signing these contracts but he does know these players you know so we’ll see how that goes it’s either going to be fresh eyes or it’s going to be doesn’t know enough about the player and I can’t decide which way that’s going to go so I’m really interested in what these contracts are going to look like um specifically I think especially chinina covs because he’s the one that I’m most unsure about in terms of what his new contract is going to look like but I suspect he’ll get his qualifying offer and then he’ll sign that and then again they’ll kick the can down the road to next season and it’ll be a problem for future future Don wadell um we’re going to finish off with a quick uh Roundup of morial cup and uh the monsters are unfortunately being Hershey bad so we’re going to talk about those things uh in in the next segment so we’ll do that in just a second here on lock on Blue Jackets first I got to tell you about FanDuel because it’s winner take time in the NBA and the NHL right now and FanDuel is giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own right now new customers are going to get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet it’s 150 bucks to bet on spreads money line player props and more literally okay here’s what you do you go in you find the heaviest possible favorite that you can you put five bucks on it if it wins even if it’s you know the odds are even you get your $5 back and you get $150 in bonus bets and you can spend those on literally anything you want it doesn’t have to be NH HL NBA literally anything on FanDuel you can spend that bonus money on just visit fanduel.com locked on make every playoff shot count FanDuel is America’s number one sports book welcome back to lock on Blue Jackets we talked about eaun hav and now we’re just going to check in on uh the the Blue Jackets franchise playoff stuff uh so what that means is we’re going to check in with the monsters who are unfortunately down to nothing against the Hershey Bears which is not necessarily surprising being that the Hershey Bears are just an absolute monster team um it is annoying the bck the monsters excuse me came back to force overtime twice uh first time they were down four to2 they scored two goals in the last 90 seconds to force overtime Hershey finished it in overtime game two Cleveland uh came back from 2-1 down scored again in like the last minute of Regulation to take it to overtime and then Hershey finished it in overtime so two really close games interested to see what happens when Hershey comes to Cleveland which uh game one is tomorrow at 7.m Eastern um it’s uh it’s getting tense this is the first time that the monsters have lost back-to-back games in this play in these playoffs it’s the first time that um they’ve lost since game one of the playoffs they went like lost the first game against the Belleville senors and then won the next like six games in a row uh three against Belleville and then they swept uh Syracuse um and here’s here’s a fun a fun fact uh David yur is currently leading the blue Jack the monsters in uh in points this playoffs he’s got nine points in nine games including he has both game tying goals I believe um in the series so far so it would be really great to see them get a win on uh on Tuesday to to make the series 2-1 if they could tie the series going back to Hershey even better although I think the the the series is going to be two games in Hershey which they’ve just done and then three games in Cleveland and then two games in Hershey because of travel stuff so if the monsters can win all three games in Cleveland things are looking promising obviously it’s very very early the Hershey Bears are a very good team they haven’t lost back-to-back games all season but it is far from over for the monsters they’ve been right in these games it’s been you know one goal games so hopefully they manage to uh not necessarily steal a win but hopefully they manage to even the score a little bit in the next couple of games um and then in terms of the Memorial Cup which was last week uh the musaw Warriors made it to the semi final and then lost to the sagor Spirit uh D matok had seven points in in four games man rash shavei I believe had a goal and an assist in in four games s matuk will now be heading to Cleveland to start his pro career he’ll be joining them I think he he arrived yesterday or today so he might not be in the lineup tomorrow but look for him to maybe get into the lineup further down the line especially the monster’s kind of beat up on defense right now um and then sagos SP with noan aland went to the final to play the London Knights with Max McHugh and uh went ahead and won it so that’s fun um because everyone thought that the London Knights were this kind of Unstoppable Juggernaut and uh they were in fact a very stoppable Juggernaut so max mchu does not win the Memorial Cup he’s also headed to Cleveland um probably not as soon as matay chuk I think he’s probably taken a couple of days off and he’ll be heading down to Cleveland although it’s less far for him to go like London is much closer than uh MOJ to uh to Cleveland but the moners are going to be getting reinforcements in the form at in the form of a forward and a defenseman um and then Nolan gets to win the Memorial Cup so that’s again extremely fun and good um in terms of Max McHugh I want to see um what his what his uh scoring was like in the Memorial Cup because uh Max mchu um actually only had he had three assists in four games so like not groundbreaking not terrible we’ll see how he does again if he gets to do a game he might not um but he’ll likely be a monster next year so this is probably going to be a good chance for the head coach TR vog Hooper to get a good look at both of these guys um and it gives matuk a little bit of pro experience before he goes home trains for the summer and then comes back to try and make the blue jacket in October that’s all I’ve got for you today uh tomorrow we are going to uh take a look at the 2020 draft actually which is appropriate since we’ve uh just looked excuse me the 2019 draft not quite as appropriate but last year we looked at the 2018 draft because you know they say that you need five years to really know what a draft is going to look like so last year um we looked at the 2018 draft so it’ been five years this year we’re going to look at the 2019 draft is a lot thinner on the ground but there’s some a couple of pieces there that are uh that are exciting um so we’ll take a look at that and again look at some guys that were drafted around them after them whatever and see kind of what’s going on um with the 2019 NHL draft for the Blue Jackets that’s going to be tomorrow’s episode thank you for listening to this episode for making us your first listen of the day every single day lock on Blue Jacket is free and available on all podcast platforms we’re over on YouTube and on SiriusXM uh you can find me on Twitter atore Jacob Foster j k o b f r s t r you can find the show at lore blue jacket if you have comments questions criticisms email me at lockon blets gmail.com uh thank you once again for listening and until tomorrow make sure you stay locked on

Yegor Chinakhov took some big steps forward this year, but was it enough? Could he be a trade piece this summer? What does his future with the team look like?

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