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Blue Jackets share draft footage revealing two budding NHL stars they interviewed before making Cayden Lindstrom decision
This summer, the Columbus Blue Jackets made the fourth pick of the 2024 NHL Draft, selecting 18-year-old center Cayden Lindstrom. In a nearly 15-minute behind-the-scenes video released by the team, the franchise gave fans a glimpse of this year's Draft, in Las Vegas.
As the franchise showed in the video, which is the first in their Behind the Battle series, before drafting Lindstrom, they interviewed other top prospects like Tij Iginla and Ivan Demidov.
Ultimately, Demidov wound up getting selected with the fifth pick of the draft by the Montreal Canadiens, while the Utah Hockey Club drafted Iginla with the sixth pick. All three players are expected to make waves in the NHL, however, as a multi-faceted center, the Blue Jackets are excited about Lindstrom's development.
The video features guest appearances from other high-profile athletes such as NHL vet PK Subban and former NFL star Marshawn Lynch. The latter is a minority owner of the Seattle Kraken. Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell spoke about the team's decision to draft Lindstrom:
"He's a center iceman, which is, they're hard to come by, big centers that not only can score but are very mean, you know, he plays very hard, so that kind of skill set with that kind of temperament, it's hard to go past those guys you know.
"This is a fourth pick overall, we hope we're not picking this low again so we had to get this right."
"Cayden was the guy we wanted" - Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell speaks about drafting Cayden Lindstrom with the No. 4 pick
This year's NHL Draft was stacked with high-level talent and budding young prospects. Macklin Celebrini was the consensus No. 1 pick, ultimately landing with the San Jose Sharks. Other players like Artyom Levshunov and Beckett Sennecke drew plenty of interest from teams around the league.
As Columbus Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell explained, outside of Celebrini, Cayden Lindstrom was the player they had their sights set on from day one.
Following the draft, Waddell spoke about the team's internal discussions leading up to, and during, the NHL Draft. While the team had a contingency plan in place, they had their sights set on drafting Lindstrom before heading to Las Vegas.
As he explained on the Blue Jackets' radio network after the draft:
“We did have a lot of calls. We had a backup deal if Cayden wasn’t available that we could have made. Cayden was the guy we wanted. We had him second on our list. ...
"When we saw (Lindstrom) was still there, that team called me and I said, ‘No, we’re not trading it.’ We’re very fortunate to draft Cayden."
The Blue Jackets are eager to build on their less-than-stellar 2023-24 season, which saw them finish the year in last place in the Metropolitan Division. It will be interesting to see how this season plays out.
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