Taking a Blue Jacket to the Beech

The Columbus Blue Jackets added yet another centre to their line-up in Kris Beech, who I thought was one of the better Free Agents left, for depth. Beech jumps into the chart as the third centre, where his point production was better than Malhotra's and Svitov's and he could actually be a good fit for Gilbert Brule and/or Jason Chimera. Beech signed a 1-year deal on Tuesday, for one, depth and two, more salary to count towards the minimum.

Rick Nash	Sergei Fedorov	David Vyborny
Fredrik Modin	Dan Fritsche	Nikolai Zherdev
Jason Chimera	Kris Beech	Gilbert Brule
Jiri Novotny	Manny Malhotra	Jody Shelley
	Alexander Svitov

Ron Hainsey	Rostislav Klesla
Adam Foote	Duvie Westcott
Jan Hejda	Ole-Kristian Tollefsen

Fredrik Norrena

Pascal Leclaire

It's unknown how much Beech will make, but it should be in the $1 million range, which solidifies their position above the minimum amount for the salary cap. It should be rounded up to around $38 million, which is pretty safe. Beech should be a good fit for the Blue Jackets, certainly not making them playoff worthy right away, but I would imagine he'll get a good look at the end of the year for re-signing.

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NHL, Hockey, Hockey Pool, Free Agents, Signing, Columbus Blue Jackets, Kris Beech