It’s really come to this, Blue Jackets fans. Rick Nash, face of the franchise for nearly a decade, could be on the move prior to the February 27 trade deadline. John Shannon of Sportsnet.ca first reported that Nash was unhappy in Columbus and a report by RDS, a French Canadian sports outlet, confirmed that the Blue Jackets have made it known that Rick Nash is available. Over the next 12 days, trade talks could progress far enough to send Nash to a new destination.

Before everyone begins to panic, there are a glaring number of hurdles that would have to be overcome for any Rick Nash trade to become a possibility. First and foremost, Rick Nash is locked into a very long-term deal at a very high cap hit. Nash signed an eight-year extension through the 2018-19 season with the Blue Jackets following the team’s only playoff appearance in franchise history. That contract holds an annual salary cap hit of $7.8 million.

Not to say that Rick Nash isn’t worth that kind of money, but it requires a lot of maneuvering and the Blue Jackets accepting a salary dump or two in return. For an organization that would clearly be rebuilding with any Rick Nash trade, taking on bad contracts is not the greatest option. Nash would have a pro-rated salary cap hit for the remainder of this season, but the Jackets would undoubtedly have to take on a couple of multi-year salary dumps from another team.

There’s also the issue of Rick Nash’s no movement clause, which is going to allow #61 to dictate where he wants to play. This is likely a small list of teams and also a small list of teams who have the necessary salary cap room to acquire such a player.

In the short-term, as stated above, Nash has a pro-rated salary cap hit for the rest of this season. The NHL salary cap bylaws have numerous provisions for late season salary cap room. Some of them include amount of money below the salary cap at midseason and injury exemptions. Several teams would have the necessary room to add Nash to finish out the season, but it’s the next six years of his contract that pose an issue. With more CBA negotiations on the horizon, committing to a major contract like Nash’s could be even more of a hindrance.

Finally, the return for a franchise player has to be off-the-charts good. The Blue Jackets would have at least three requirements for any Rick Nash trade. The first is to acquire a young, NHL-ready starting goaltender. The second is to acquire NHL-ready forward talent to immediately replace Nash. The third is at least one, if not two, first round draft picks. The requirements are listed in descending order of difficulty. In terms of NHL-ready starting goaltenders that aren’t currently starting, the list is small. Jonathan Bernier in Los Angeles and Cory Schneider in Vancouver are the two most obvious choices. Beyond that, you would be talking about Jhonas Enroth from Buffalo or going the prospect route with somebody like Florida’s Jacob Markstrom. Again, only certain teams can take on Nash’s type of contract and will be on Nash’s list of consideration.

It should come as no surprise that the Blue Jackets do, in fact, have Rick Nash on the trade block and are entertaining offers. The organization needs to do something earth-shattering and this would certainly qualify. The original Sportsnet.ca report (via Puck Daddy) said that Nash will not be the one to ask for a trade, but that he would entertain any the thought of any trade proposal that comes his way. The Blue Jackets certainly have to make something happen. The return for Rick Nash should improve the roster greatly and give them more options. It would also give them additional salary cap room with uncertain CBA negotiations coming.

Furthermore, as I mentioned last week, the Blue Jackets are looking to move Jeff Carter, but are not getting good offers. Darren Dreger of TSN said that the Blue Jackets received “an uncomfortably low” offer for Carter. There’s little chance that the Blue Jackets get back a package even to what they sent away to get Jeff Carter, so they may have to settle, especially if they go full fire sale mode.

Another reason for the Blue Jackets to move Rick Nash is to reward him for his loyalty. Nash has never really enjoyed success at the NHL level, though he has a Gold Medal from the 2010 Olympics. He signed the extension after the 2008-09 season expecting the team to continue building in the right direction and it never materialized. Similar to how teams in other sports will sometimes trade players to contenders to give them a shot at winning a championship, the Blue Jackets may feel an obligation to give Rick Nash a chance to hold the Cup. He has played on bad Blue Jackets teams for the duration of his career and has kept his mouth shut and performed. It seems that this year, he has finally reached his breaking point and his stats have suffered. If the opportunity presents itself to better the roster and give Nash a chance at winning, Scott Howson has to do it.

Without question, it is hard to envision a Blue Jackets team without Rick Nash. The reaction from the fans would be interesting to see because they all understand that change needs to happen, but I believe they’d rather see the change in the front office than with the captain. Like any trade scenario, there will be some who keep the trade in perspective and look at its future value. Others will shun the team, denounce its very existence, and swear to never go to another game.

In a Blue Jackets season that’s been anything but exciting, the next two weeks should be very interesting.

This week started off with me taking a ski vacation with the family. This was my first skiing adventure as a father, having not skied in the previous eight years, so I was a little apprehensive about being able to do it properly and avoid injury. I was pretty amazed to discover that I was actually able to ski better now, despite the extended absence, and the only injuries I received may or may not have been the result of a drunken hot tub incident (it’s really tough to say for certain).

It occurred to me that skiing is largely about having the balls to attack the slope. If you drive forward aggressively with no regard for your personal safety, and you’re much less likely to get hurt. Not only does the whole sport work better that way, but it is a lot more fun.

Now, having three kids, you could argue that I was seeking the sweet embrace of a 17-year coma to put the whining, complaining, and crying safely behind me. And believe you me, there are often times when a Sonny-Bonoesque ending is preferable to officiating a pointless yet fierce, and completely irresolvable, dispute about who gets to use the blue fucking fork. But as long as my mistress Ethyl Alcohol is with me, such dismay is only temporary. Serenity now. Serenity now.

No, more it is an evolving change in my life philosophy that has allowed me not to care about downsides, and to pursue my goals with vigor and reckless abandon. If you would see an accurate version of my resume (something no prospective employer would ever get the luxury of viewing, mind you), you would see that failure is, indeed, an option. Fact is, having the balls to attack aggressively yields positive results not only in skiing, but pretty much every sport, and everything else in life too. Because sometimes, you’ve just gotta say, “what the fuck.”

This is my fundamental problem with the Cleveland Browns – they lack organizational balls.

The lack of balls goes straight up to the feckless owner, Randy Lerner.  As Tony Grossi so eloquently put it, "he is a pathetic figure, the most irrelevant billionaire in the world." Lerner is so sackless that he couldn’t stand that negative (and accurate) representation of his character, so he had Grossi fired in one of the biggest bitch moves in the history of sport. You think Mark Cuban would have done that? Hell no, Cuban would have either (a) roasted Grossi in public with fifty times the heat of Grossi’s ill-advised tweet, or (b) invited Grossi to dinner. Because like him or not, Cuban has balls, and a championship trophy in his living room on which to rest them.

Lerner is so impotent that he had to hire Mike Holmgren to be the testicles of the organization that he could not provide himself. Now Holmgren has balls – he was an excellent coach, and as a GM he had to stones to trade FOR Charlie Frye after watching Chuck get sacked six times in 18 minutes of football while failing to control his bowels, bladder, and tears in the face of pressure. Which articulates the fine line between balls and stupid, I guess.

But does Holmgren really have balls? If he did, he would have hired a coach that could stand up to him and actually provide input, as opposed to the incompetent human puppet he hired in Pat Shurmur. Don’t get me started on Shurmur. Let’s just say that seeing Brad Maynard trot out onto the field when the ball is inside the opposing 40 when you have FOUR FUCKING WINS on the season is such a pile of chicken shit worthlessness that it made me want to go all Elvis on my TV and shoot it all 5,034 times it happened this season. Mike Smith of the Falcons went for it at his OWN 20 in a game that ACTUALLY FUCKING MATTERED in overtime. That, my friends is balls. Pat Shurmur, you’re no Mike Smith.

So my message to the Browns is simple: if you’re going to be hopelessly outgunned (as is likely for the next few years), please, go down like Butch and Sundance, not soiling yourself in cowardice like captain Francesco Schettino. It will be more entertaining for the fans, and you know what, you just may start winning.

Anyway, off to the questions.

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First order of business: let’s all congratulate New York City, which finally got its long-awaited championship and can rightfully celebrate not only a satisfying world title, but also its place as the very conscience of the nation, representing all the strong moral fiber and modest level-mindedness America has to offer.

Whoops - for a second there I got New York confused with Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.

Instead, we fart in New York’s general direction. The rest of us will wait longer to buy a handgun in Texas than NYC will before winning yet another damned championship.

Consequently, New York drops from No. 40 to dead last at No. 62 in the latest edition of the Sports Misery Index - replacing Boston as the least miserable sports city (or more appropriately, market) that could potentially have captured a world title in one of the four major sports leagues encompassing the U.S. and Canada.

For more details on the rationale between determining the factors that go into calculating the Index - which mirrors the U.S. economic Misery Index (inflation rate + unemployment rate), click here for a previous TCF column outlining the origin of the Sports Misery Index.

And, not surprisingly, nothing changes atop the list, where Cleveland remains the Neil Diamond of sports misery.

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February is projecting to be a rather interesting month for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Outside of team scouts racking up frequent flyer miles doing their due diligence on the 2012 NHL Entry Draft Class, Scott Howson is working the phones looking for trade partners for Jeff Carter and Todd Richards is trying to get a team whose fate has been sealed for months to keep playing.

Despite all of this, somebody actually wants to stay in Columbus. Vaclav “Vinny” Prospal agreed to terms on a one-year contract extension with the Blue Jackets on Wednesday. Prospal, whose trade value was believed to be a second round draft pick because of his veteran leadership and solid point totals on an awful team, also has a “gentleman’s agreement” in place with the Blue Jackets that he will remain with the organization when his playing days are over. According to Columbus Dispatch Blue Jackets beat writer Aaron Portzline, the contract extension includes a no-trade clause and the team is prepared to sign Prospal to one-year extensions every season until he feels like retiring.

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