GM Don Waddell\u2019s comments<\/a> on Thursday to speak for the club.<\/p>\nBut through a team spokesman,\u00a0Evason\u00a0indicated that there were, in fact, conversations between him and Chinkahov, as well as his assistant coaches and the player.<\/p>\n
Further, Evason said through the spokesman, \u201cThe lines of communication are open, and they will continue to be open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chinakhov was arguably the Blue Jackets\u2019 best forward in the first month of the season, drawing considerable time on the No. 1 line with center Sean Monahan and right winger Kirill Marchenko.<\/p>\n
When he went down with a back injury in late November, he had seven goals, seven assists and 14 points in 21 games and averaged just over 17 minutes of ice time per game, the highest in his career. But the back injury knocked him out of the lineup for more than three months and was a source of much frustration for the club.<\/p>\n
It marked the fourth straight season that Chinakhov has missed considerable time with an injury. In four seasons, he\u2019s missed 121 games, mostly with back and ankle injuries.<\/p>\n
Chinakhov had a procedure done in Russia during the NHL\u2019s break for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament and was able to return to the lineup on March 4. He played in only nine games the rest of the way, totaling 0-1-1 and a minus-8 rating, and playing just 12:42.<\/p>\n
When the Blue Jackets made a push toward the Stanley Cup playoffs \u2014 they won their final six games to finish two points out of the last playoff spot \u2014 Chinakhov was sitting as a healthy scratch.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny team in the NHL would say Chinny is a top-six player,\u201d Babaev said. \u201cIf (Evason) doesn\u2019t like him, then why not trade him. Why should you hold him? What\u2019s the reason? It\u2019s the best solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina wants to play in the NHL. He wants to win. He wants to help the team. He wants to try his best. But if the coach doesn\u2019t like him, how can he do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Waddell said he\u2019s open to a trade, but only if he gets the right offer for Chinakhov. Otherwise, the expectation is that Chinakhov would arrive at training camp in September ready to compete and play. Babaev confirmed to The Athletic that Chinakhov will arrive on time to camp, and he said his back injury is 100 percent healed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not good that this (story) is coming to the media,\u201d said Babaev, whose midday Thursday social media post alerted the hockey world to Chinakhov\u2019s interview with the Russian outlet Sports-Express, in which the trade request first landed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYegor just said what he thinks. He talked about his emotions, and that\u2019s fine. I\u2019ve already talked to (Waddell). It was a good conversation. We both understand each other, and I understand Yegor is a very good player. It\u2019s not easy (for the Blue Jackets) to trade him. (Waddell) needs to get something for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo: G Fiume \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 One day after Yegor Chinakhov\u2019s trade request was made public, the agent for the Columbus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,3936,575,85],"class_list":["post-4634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}