{"id":865775,"date":"2026-09-30T10:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865775\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T10:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:56:12","slug":"blue-jackets-happy-to-have-marchenko-saga-end-before-season-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865775\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jackets \u2018happy\u2019 to have Marchenko saga end before season starts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYou can kind of tell that (Marchenko) didn&#8217;t really want to be here and we didn\u2019t need that hanging over us to start the year off,\u201d Blue Jackets defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/zach-werenski-8478460\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zach Werenski<\/a> said on Tuesday. \u201cI wish him all the best. I&#8217;m happy it&#8217;s done before the season, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marchenko, 26, was traded to the Maple Leafs as part of a six-player deal, with forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/matthew-knies-8482720\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Knies<\/a>, 23, being the key for Columbus.<\/p>\n<p>Agent Dan Milstein indicated in June that Marchenko, who could have become a restricted free agent after this season, would not re-sign with Columbus.<\/p>\n<p>On Sept. 18, Marchenko would not commit to staying with the Blue Jackets when asked by the media.<\/p>\n<p>Columbus general manager Don\u00a0Waddell said Marchenko never gave a reason why he wanted out. Forward\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/mathieu-olivier-8479671\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mathieu Olivier<\/a> said that after Marchenko\u2019s interview with the media he talked with his teammate and gave an explanation, although Olivier would not disclose it to reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re moving on and we want guys that want to be here, so we&#8217;re excited, really excited, for the start of the season,\u201d Olivier said.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness also was happy to see the saga end. Marchenko has 208 points (102 goals, 106 assists) in 292 NHL games, all with Columbus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou want every player to want to be here, that they want to be part of the solution. That&#8217;s true for every team,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cSo, if you don&#8217;t want to be here, and then clearly you&#8217;ve got one foot out the door so you can&#8217;t get that 100 percent commitment, I get it. He wanted to move on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe gave him that opportunity, and it&#8217;s a great deal for both teams. We&#8217;re getting a big power forward who wants to be here, who wants to be part of the solution, and that&#8217;s what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Knies had 160 points (67 goals, 93 assists) in 240 regular-season games and 14 points (eight goals, six assists) in 27 Stanley Cup Playoff games with Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYou can kind of tell that (Marchenko) didn&#8217;t really want to be here and we didn\u2019t need that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-865775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}