COLUMBUS – Rather than fortify their lineup for the first playoff run in franchise history, the Columbus Blue Jackets yesterday unloaded marquee players defenseman Adam Foote and center Sergei Fedorov.
The impetus for the trades was that both players – the two oldest on the team and both in the final years of lucrative contracts – could have gone elsewhere this summer without the Blue Jackets getting anything in return. Now Columbus will have money available to spend on free agents this summer.
Foote was being paid $4.6 million and Fedorov more than $6 million this season.
The 36-year-old Foote, also the Blue Jackets captain, went to the Colorado Avalanche for a first-round pick in either 2008 or 2009. Columbus also gets a conditional fourth-round pick in 2009.
Fedorov, 38, was traded to the Washington Capitals for defenseman Theo Ruth, now playing collegiate hockey for Notre Dame.
Columbus, the only NHL team to never make the playoffs, has a record of 29-26-9.
Their 67 points put them just five back of the Nashville Predators, who hold the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
General manager Scott Howson scheduled a news conference for later yesterday to discuss the trades.
Foote returns to his former team where he won two Stanley Cups. He was a mainstay on Colorado’s blue line before signing with the Blue Jackets as a free agent before the start of the 2005-2006 season. Six weeks into that season, he was selected as the fourth captain in club history.
Howson had been in discussions with Foote on a new two-year contract, but the sides were $1 million apart – the Blue Jackets offering $7 million and Foote and his agent, Rick Curran, looking for $8 million.
When it became clear that he could not reach an agreement with the Blue Jackets, Foote waived the no-trade clause in his contract.
“I found out a lot of teams were interested in me, but I didn’t want to go anywhere, because I wanted to finish the job here,” Foote told The Columbus Dispatch. “I wanted to play two more seasons here and get in the playoffs.”
Fedorov, who played on three Stanley Cup-winning teams in Detroit, becomes just the second most-famous Russian on his new team. He joins NHL scoring leader Alexander Ovechkin, one of the top young guns in the league.
Fedorov had suffered through a string of injuries this season and recently rejoined the team after recovering from a concussion and leg problems.
He returned in time to score a goal in a shootout victory at Ottawa on Saturday but hasn’t practiced this week.
