Blue Jackets’ Defense Remains Uncertain After 2025 NHL Draft

Blue Jackets Will Monitor D Market

GM Don Waddell spoke on Saturday afternoon after the conclusion of Day 2 of the 2025 NHL Draft. While his phone was very active in the days leading up to the draft, it wasn’t as active on Saturday.

“It was mostly picks for picks though,” Waddell said about the calls he got Saturday. “There wasn’t a whole lot of players being shopped today. That’s for sure. Again, probably the decentralized draft where you’re not in person. There was a few hockey trades made but I think they’ve been brewing for a while. It was mostly a lot of pick swapping that was put out there to move up or move back.”

The Blue Jackets were heavily involved in a potential trade for Noah Dobson. Ultimately, the Montreal Canadiens won out. Interestingly enough on 32 Thoughts the Podcast released on Sunday, Elliotte Friedman said that not only was Dmitri Voronkov the potential player involved, the Blue Jackets’ offer to Dobson was for more money than what he got from Montreal ($9.5 million per season.)

Clearly, the Blue Jackets still have an appetite to make moves to improve their defense. Waddell said as much on Saturday.

“I don’t think that’s changed,” Waddell said about the appetite to add on defense. “It’s been ongoing since we ended the season and we’re going to continue to work with first our players that we have control with until July 1 to see which one of those (we could keep.) The players that were here that are free were players that played very good roles for our hockey team if you look at (Dante) Fabbro and (Ivan) Provorov speaking of those two guys. So you could look at that free-agent market and say, okay. Who’s going to do a better job for us?”

“Our first goal is to make sure we try to follow up as much as we can with those two particular defensemen to see if we could bring one or both of them back.”

At last check, negotiations with both Fabbro and Provorov appeared either slow or at a standstill. While the door isn’t completely closed on them, time is running short before they can talk to other teams.

Meanwhile, Waddell is going to continue searching for help on the blue line.

“Is there more we’d like to do? Of course,” Waddell said. “We got to continue to work on our defense…I feel pretty good about our forwards. We’re going to explore these next few days to stay on top of the D market. It’s no secret everybody looks at the same list that we’re looking at. And with all the free agents out there particularly on defense, it’s not like a plethora of players. There’s a lot of players but not a lot of top players. My job as general manager is to make sure I stay in touch with the people that are part of the process here. And come July 1, if we have needs, we will certainly go out and try to address them.”

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There are several possibilities in play leaving the Blue Jackets’ current situation on defense uncertain. If the Blue Jackets were willing to part with multiple first rounders and a good, young player they like in Voronkov while potentially offering Dobson $10 million, it speaks not only about Dobson the player but how much of a need they felt they had on their blue line.

Should Fabbro and Provorov not re-sign with the Blue Jackets, the defense would look something like this.

• Zach Werenski – Damon Severson
• Denton Mateychuk – Erik Gudbranson
• Jake Christiansen – Jordan Harris

We are assuming the Blue Jackets re-sign Harris as he’s an RFA. It’s clear why trying to acquire Dobson made sense here. With trade options dwindling and not too many top options available on the market, it will be interesting to see how the team chooses to address this unit.

Are the Blue Jackets able to bridge the gaps in talks with Fabbro or Provorov? Maybe. Waddell certainly didn’t rule out that possibility. But at the same time, he also said they’ll continue to monitor the D market.

We thought that there would be clarity on what the Blue Jackets’ defense might look like after the draft. That’s not the case at all. It remains uncertain what all will happen as we roll the calendar into July.