Blue Jackets Should Not Trade for Canucks’ Horvat

The Columbus Blue Jackets 2022-23 season has been abhorrent. After signing Johnny Gaudreau in the offseason, expectations may have been inflated a bit, but no one expected them to be last place in the Eastern Conference two weeks before Christmas. The team is weak throughout the roster and looking for whatever help they can get. However, finding a long-term legitimate centreman may be at the top of their list of needs.

The Vancouver Canucks’ Bo Horvat situation is an interesting one. He’s an experienced, legitimate top-six centreman, with leadership ability, who is surely on the move. He would make for a brilliant second-line center on a contending team as a good goal scorer with a strong 200-foot game. While the Blue Jackets have been looking for a new top-six center for a long time, Horvat is not the guy they’re looking for. Let’s look into why that’s the case.

Horvat Would Cost Too Much

Horvat has had a heck of a season and is a legitimate top-six center. Those two things would set the market value high on their own. The Blue Jackets are not a playoff team and are not pushing to win this season, so to be interested, they would need him to be more than a rental, and a contract extension would need to be signed. That increases his trade value even more.

Related: Canucks Should Target 3 Blue Jackets Players in Horvat Trade

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So let’s get down to it: What would be going back to Vancouver in a potential trade?

THW’s own Matthew Zator wrote a story earlier in the season with three players that the Canucks would have to target in a potential trade for Horvat. He came up with defenseman David Jiricek and forwards Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger. All three of those players are invaluable to the Jackets’ rebuild and would be way too much to give up. Nonetheless, I agree with him that it would likely take one of those names for the Canucks to move their captain. And if it weren’t one of them, it would have to be a package of picks and other prospects to aid in their rebuild. In either scenario, the assets given up would take away from Columbus’ own rebuild, and that alone makes the acquisition price far too high.

Not only would losing those assets make a trade difficult to stomach, but the cap space eaten up by Horvat’s next deal would make it even less palatable when considering the number of big-ticket contracts coming…