The source didn’t hedge. “Kirill is essentially between two teams right now,” someone close to Kirill Marchenko told RG.org. “The parties are now negotiating the terms of the trade.” That lands three weeks after Columbus general manager Don Waddell said Marchenko would be a Blue Jacket when the season starts. I read the sequence and see the standard NHL summer script: public calm, private auction.
Columbus never had to shop him hard. They only had to listen. A 6-foot-3 right-shot winger who just posted 27 goals and 67 points in 76 games, leading the Blue Jackets in goals for a third straight season, does not sit quietly on the board. The $3.85 million AAV running through 2026-27 makes the listening easier. After that he becomes a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. That is the real clock.
The Contract Is the Asset, Not the Narrative
I keep coming back to the money relative to the production. Marchenko signed that three-year, $11.55 million extension in July 2024. He just delivered 27-40-67 with a plus-7 and 218 shots. The year before he hit career highs of 31 goals and 74 points. Career line sits around 102 goals and 208 points in roughly 292 games. At that AAV he is still a bargain against the market for proven 25-to-30-goal wings who can drive play on either side.
Teams chasing him are not buying a rental. They are buying one more season of team-friendly control and then the right to negotiate an extension or walk into arbitration with a 27-year-old who has stacked three straight goal-leading seasons in Columbus. That structure is why the talks never fully died after Waddell’s July 2 shutdown. Listening is free until the return is right.
Montreal’s Massive Offer Was Never Just Noise
Frank Seravalli reported the Canadiens put a “MASSIVE” offer on the table around the draft, the kind that made people say the club “might look borderline insane for putting this deal on the table.” Elliotte Friedman separately confirmed an offer was made and that Montreal has been stealthy about adding scoring. Marco D’Amico has kept them on the short list of clubs still hunting a top-six forward, with Marchenko remaining one of the cleaner fits if contract talks progress.
I buy the fit on both ends. Montreal needs finishing that does not require another year of development. Marchenko arrives already producing at a first-line rate on volume shots and can slide in beside existing playmakers without forcing a full system reset. For Columbus the calculation is different. They get younger or deeper or both, and they avoid the risk of watching a pending RFA walk into a higher number after another 25-plus goal season. The “two teams” language from Marchenko’s camp tells me the return has narrowed to something both sides can live with.
Waddell’s public stance was never a hard no. It was a price floor. When a source close to the player says the parties are finalizing terms, the floor has been met or is about to be. Earlier names floated around him (Utah, Seattle, Philadelphia, others) matter less now than the fact that only two remain in active negotiation.
Selling High Before the RFA Window Opens
The smartest version of this deal for Columbus is simple: cash a productive, physical winger while the AAV is still low and the return is still competitive. Holding him through another 70-point season only raises the next contract and raises the asking price for anyone still trying to pry him loose later. Montreal, if they are one of the two, is paying the premium now because they decided waiting for internal scoring is no longer the plan.
Marchenko is training in Russia and just skated in Ovechkin’s charity game. He is not the one leaking urgency. The urgency sits with the two front offices still trading paper. I do not need the destination confirmed to see the shape. A 67-point winger on a $3.85 million deal with one controlled year left does not stay in limbo once the terms are this close. The denial was July. The negotiation is now. That gap is where trades actually happen.
