Seattle Kraken Acquire F Oliver Bjorkstrand from the Columbus Blue Jackets
After the Columbus Blue Jackets signed F Patrik Laine, they exceeded the NHL's salary cap by about $6.3 million, per CapFriendly. In order to become compliant, they needed to offload a contract or two before October 13th.
Well, they did just that this afternoon when they traded F Oliver Bjorkstrand to the Seattle Kraken. In return, the Kraken sent a pair of 2023 draft picks, relieving the Blue Jackets of Bjorkstrand's $5.4 million cap hit.
Bjorkstrand was the obvious casualty off of Columbus' roster. $5.4 million is a lot of money to spend on a guy who has never reached 30 goals or 60 points. Especially now that the Blue Jackets employ Johnny Gaudreau & Patrik Laine at a combined annual salary of $18.5 million. On the other hand, Oliver Bjorkstrand is an analytics darling, posting great underlying results.
Seattle gets a great deal here, taking advantage of a cap-strapped Columbus group. They get a proven point-getter who plays hard on the puck for merely a pair of mid-round picks. Tidy work for Seattle & just the way the cookie crumbles in Columbus.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 16, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | 4 | 5 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
| Jack Quinn | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Zach Benson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jake Evans | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Konsta Helenius | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Zach Metsa | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Arber Xhekaj | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Bowen Byram | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Michael Matheson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Norris | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||