Provorov, Severson add depth, dependability to CBJ blue line

You can never have too many defensemen, but last season, the Blue Jackets had to play too many defensemen.

It's a slight but important distinction. Last season, the Blue Jackets skated 15 different blueliners, which is about eight or nine more than the average team would prefer to cycle through in a given season.

Of course, last year was anything but normal given the seemingly daily occurrence of injuries the Blue Jackets suffered, and the result was that Columbus finished 31st in the NHL with a franchise-record 4.01 goals allowed per game.

Put another way, Columbus became just the second team -- joining Anaheim this year -- to give up more than four goals per game since the year 2000, so it might not be a huge surprise change would be on the way.

So far, the result is that the Blue Jackets have acquired two of the more dependable defensemen in the league via trade. Last week, Columbus sent a pair of draft picks to Philadelphia to acquire Ivan Provorov, while Friday brought a sign-and-trade deal that added former New Jersey blueliner Damon Severson to the fold for the next eight seasons.

In the eyes of Jarmo Kekalainen, the additions will help solidify what has been an area of inconsistency over the past few seasons, which was a major goal of the offseason.

"We've been young, and we've been going through some struggles in the last couple of years," the general manager said. "Watching the growth of our young guys and young guys on defense in particular, we felt like we have to strengthen the top four of our defense to take the next step."

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That should pay immediate dividends for the Blue Jackets, who saw just Andrew Peeke (80 games) and Erik Gudbranson (70) play more than 60 games on the blue line last year. Who could have imagined in September that prospect Tim Berni (59 games) would play four times as many games as All-Star Zach Werenski (13), who saw his season cut short because of injury?

Given that, the first hope is that Provorov and Severson will provide stability. Both are solid players who can provide some skill going forward and handle themselves in their own zone, but the biggest benefit might be their durability, as Provorov has missed only three games in his seven-year NHL career and Severson has missed just three over the past five years.

Kekalainen points out the best teams have steady top-four blueliners who get the job done, and Columbus can now build around Werenski, Provorov and Severson for the coming seasons. It's the kind of setup that has Severson excited to get to Columbus.

"I'm looking forward to getting to meet both of those guys," Severson said of Werenski and Provorov. "Provorov and myself will be coming into a new organization and trying to solidify ourselves as top defensemen and help this team take the next step they need to."

The move also gives Columbus plenty of depth on the blue line, with Peeke, Gudbranson, Berni, Adam Boqvist, Nick Blankenburg and Jake Bean set to return to join that trio of players. Waiting in the wings are such names as David Jiricek, Stanislav Svozil, Samuel Knazko, Corson Ceuelmans and Denton Mateychuk, all of whom have impressed in their junior days and are highly touted prospects who could see the lineup sooner or later.

In Kekalainen's eyes, the good news is that the new additions mean those youngsters don't have to be pushed into spots they might not quite be ready for in the coming campaigns.

"Defense is a tough position to rush anybody," Kekalainen said. "I think the NHL is a tough league to learn in. The mistakes are going to be costly on defense a lot more so than playing on the wing on the third or fourth line when you play limited minutes. On defense, you can get exposed, especially on the road when teams match up forwards against your fifth and sixth defensemen when you ice the puck.

"Therefore, I think it's important that we don't rush any of our prospects. I think all of those young defensemen are going to get a great opportunity to show that they are ready, and if they are not, we don't have to rush them now. We have a solid top four, top three in particular after these moves. They're going to be great partners for some of our young defensemen as well where they can learn and don't have to take on the heavy responsibility in a lot of areas of what the D-men do."

After two straight years of allowing a franchise record in goals allowed, the Blue Jackets clearly targeted upgrades to the team's defensive unit this offseason. Now, Kelalainen believes Columbus has turned what was a question mark into an exclamation point.

"I think defense is a strength of our team right now, and the depth of it is a strength of ours right now," Kekalainen said. "I think you always need a real good top four, as you see the teams that are still playing, they usually have a very strong top four that can eat most of the minutes and be reliable at both ends of the ice and also good on special teams. I think these moves take care of all that, and we're very, very excited."