Hours after zipping around the ice and showing off his elite skill in what turned out to be his last practice with the Blue Jackets, Kirill Marchenko boarded a private jet with his agent, Dan Milstein.
After being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sept. 28 along with injured goalie Elvis Merzlikins and forward Miles Wood, Marchenko posed for a photo alongside Milstein, both gleaming as their jet sped away from Columbus.
"You could tell that Marchy didn't want to be here," Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenskisaid. "We just don't need that hanging over us to start the year off, so I think it's good."
Werenski had some explaining of his own to do this summer afterdoubts
about his future with the Blue Jackets led to a trade with the Dallas Stars that he nixed July 1, but his response was more genuine.
After issuing a statement along with Blue Jackets president/general manager Don Waddell the same day he vetoed the trade, Werenski then held a press conference Aug. 13 to clear the air regarding his situation heading into the final two years of his contract.
He left open the possibility of re-signing with the Jackets, which he'll be eligible to do next year, but it will likely depend on how things go this season, which opens Oct. 1 against the Buffalo Sabres. Marchenko dodged the questions he received on the second day of training camp, declining to give straight answers about his future with the Blue Jackets.
He wanted out. Now he's gone.
"I saw his [press conference] a couple weeks ago," Werenski said. "The writing was kind of on the wall a little bit. I thought he was great during training camp. He showed up. He was a good teammate. So that's all you can ask for. I'm not going to really dig into why he didn't want to be here, but it doesn't matter at this point. He's not here anymore.
"But whenever you have those distractions, it hangs over the team a little bit. So, I think it's good we got ahead of it and we have our full team for night one."
Werenski had already seen this happen back in 2018, when Milstein orchestrated a similar situation with Artemi Panarin, one of his former clients. The difference is that Panarin wasn't traded by former Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen, who hung onto the Russian star and malcontented goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in their final contract years.
Panarin fired Milstein midway through the season, going instead with Bobrovsky's agent, Paul Theofanous, but it didn't help the Blue Jackets keep them. They lost their Russian stars to free agency July 1, 2019, and got nothing in return but their contributions in a stirring sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning as their first and only playoff series victory.
Waddell also showed patience with Marchenko, whose agent blindsided him moments before he selected Boston College forward Oscar Hemming with the 14th pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. Kevin Weekes, an ESPN analyst and former NHL goalie, cited "somebody from Marchenko's camp" as telling him the star forward likely wouldn't stay with the Blue Jackets long-term, which was news to Waddell.
"We all heard it the same day, on draft day," Waddell said. "I was with Milstein the week before, down at his [client combine] down in Florida. We never heard a word about it, and then, for some reason, he broke it on draft day to everybody in the world, including me."
Waddell's phone immediately started ringing, as opposing teams rushed to see what it would take to land the Jackets' leading goal scorer for the past three seasons. Waddell insisted on getting a high level NHL player in return, along with additional pieces that would improve the Blue Jackets.
That's where forward Matthew Knies, 23, defenseman Emil Andrae, 24, forward Steven Lorentz, 30, and a 2027 second-round pick entered the chat.
Collectively, that's the haul for Marchenko, and the Blue Jackets couldn't get their arms extended fast enough. Knies, who is 6 feet 2, 232 pounds, will skate on the top line with Kent Johnson and center Adam Fantilli, who described his new teammate as a "moose."
It was a compliment. Marchenko, by comparison, is more of a gazelle.
Knies also will get a key role with the top power-play unit, likely positioned in front of goalies as a screener. He's not as skilled as Marchenko, who played on the left wall in the Jackets' power-play setup, but Knies' rare combination of size, strength and skill makes him a nightmare around the net.
"You want every player to want to be here, and that they want to be part of the solution," Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. "So, if you don't want to be here, then you clearly have one foot out the door, so you can't get that 100% commitment. So, I get it. [Marchenko] wanted to move on. We gave him that opportunity and it's a great deal for both teams, and we're getting a big power forward who wants to be here and who wants to be part of the solution. That's what we want, and he's going to be a huge part of this team moving forward."
Judgment on Knies' desire to play for the Blue Jackets should be delayed, though, because the deal caught him by surprise, too, especially its timing. The trade was completed seconds before the NHL's 5 p.m. Sept. 28 deadline to submit opening rosters, which sent him to Columbus on the eve of the Maple Leafs' Sept. 29 season-opener against the Montreal Canadiens.
He was still processing it all during a Sept. 29 teleconference with reporters, after months of dealing with trade speculation that spotlighted him as Toronto's primary trade chip. Trade talk eventually subsided before the Maple Leafs' training camp, which he'd just completed before the trade.
“It was a fun time playing here," Knies said from Toronto. "It’s a crazy hockey city and exciting, but I’m fired up to go to Columbus and get a fresh start, and a breath of fresh air, and not have to worry about all that kind of crap over my head for all this trade stuff, and just focus on hockey and focus on the guys in the room, and try to win."
That last part was music to the Blue Jackets' ears.
“It’s been a lot of distractions. I'm not going to lie to you," forward Mathieu Olivier said. "It’s funny. After talking to [reporters] in camp, the next day I pulled Marchy aside and asked him if any of it was true, and he was very candid with me, which I appreciated. I told him that I respect what he wants to do, but as a team we have to move on from that, when guys don’t want to be here, especially with what we want to build. ... We’re moving on and we want guys who want to be here, so we’re excited for the start of the season.”
Dispatch Blue Jackets/Crew reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets move on from Kirill Marchenko 'distraction'
