Rick Nash is the marquee name this trade deadline, and certainly the most important player on the Columbus Blue Jackets right now when it comes to getting something to rebuild the team up with. There's another wild-card on the squad though, center Jeff Carter.
Jeremy White of WGR Buffalo produced a stream of tweets early on Tuesday that brought up some decent points involving the Buffalo Sabres perhaps being interested in Carter. Certainly, the Sabres are in need of some sort of scoring spark and their lack of talent at the center position has been in contention for the whole season, well shown last year when they were injured against and lost horribly to the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round.
I already wrote an article on The Hockey Writers dissecting this trade through Buffalo's perspective back on Tuesday. It could be a good move for both sides; the biggest question would be what Buffalo would be able to give up in such a trade. They do have plenty of wing depth and could send a guy like Tyler Ennis over to Columbus to help bolster their offense with youth along with a draft pick or two. There have been rumors that Columbus are looking for a strong, experienced goalkeeper to help themselves out as well, so this could be the trade that finally gets Ryan Miller out of Buffalo even though there have been better trades suggested in Buffalo's favor.
It also begs the question, how much would Columbus want for Carter? With all of the hoopla about Rick Nash out there, Carter seems to be on the backburner even though he may be the better buy overall with a significantly smaller cap hit even with the enormous contract length-wise -- Carter is set to stay under contract for almost a decade after signing a huge contract extension when he was still with the Flyers before the Jackets picked him up.
Carter's stock is up as well, after getting a hat trick for himself in the Blue Jackets' most recent win against the San Jose Sharks. Keep an eye out, it could be that the Jeff Carter story turns even more intriguing than the Rick Nash story by the time February 27th and the trade deadline come around.
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