Ward: Columbus won't accommodate Johansen's demands

Aaron Ward was on TSN 1040 Wednesday morning.

On what sort of pressure the Columbus Blue Jackets might be feeling in the Ryan Johansen contract negotiations, especially with Nathan Horton already hurting and out of the lineup, and what might happen with this situation:

“I honestly think that if you’re Columbus, you’re going to sit back and say to them, ‘Okay, if we go into the season and you’re not signed and we come out of the gates and we are brutal, we go 0-10, or we just struggle – then we’re going for the sweepstakes next year.’

“I mean, there’s a pretty decent player in the draft that every team right now is going to be lining up for... So, I mean, Connor McDavid right now is a guy that most guys, I mean, they’ll do anything to get him.

“And so if I’m Columbus, I say ‘You know what? Screw you. You want to sit on the sidelines? Okay: a) don’t take a paycheck and b) you’re going to put us in a position – you’ve already got an excuse for us to tank the season.’

“So Columbus could go that route. And I don’t imagine that Columbus right now is going to bend over and – I don’t want to use that analogy. (Laughs) I don’t think that Columbus is going to accommodate him.”

Source: TSN 1040/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey