What to make about David Jiricek’s frustration about ice time

Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman David Jiricek expressed his frustration over the weekend in an article with Aaron Portzline of The Athletic, citing lack of ice time as the root cause. Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk dig into Columbus’s decision to healthy scratch the first-round pick and the overall treatment of the prospect.

Tyler Yaremchuk: The other story out of Columbus right now involves David Jiricek and his very candid statements about his ice time or therefore lack of it, when it comes to the former sixth overall pick what do you make of the situation? Is this a young player just not understanding how hard it is to crack the league or is this justified frustration?

Frank Seravalli: No, this is a delusional Columbus Blue Jackets franchise and front office. I can’t believe what I’m seeing play out here. You got Jiricek depending on how you slice it with Adam Fantilli and Denton Mateychuk, at the least he’s your third-best prospect and I think this season based on eye tests and stats he’s Columbus’s second-best defenseman. He’s still a teenager and finishing his way with the game. But given what we just said about their season being over why isn’t Jiricek playing? Why is he beating healthy scratched, why is he being shuttled back and forth to Cleveland and why is he out in Calgary and then told to pack his bags for Cleveland, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Frank Seravalli: He has stated now publicly through  Aaron Portzline at The Athletic that he wants to play and this is a simmering situation. He’s voiced his frustration, and more or less got told to get in line. He was being compared to the coach’s 13-year-old daughter who wants a car and saying this is now a product of the Amazon age where you buy something and it shows up two hours later. I don’t buy that because I think he’s passed that smell test of being one of their best players already and in a year in which the season is lost why are you prioritizing -45 Andrew Peeke, Adam Boqvist, Jake Bean all these guys over a franchise cornerstone for your team moving forward, it makes no sense. It certainly feels like their GM Jarmo Kekalianen without a cohesive plan is halfway off the plank.

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