Thirteen months ago, the Blue Jackets went after free agent Wade Redden, the most expensive defenseman on the market at the time. They went hard after him. Estimates were that the Jackets pitched a four-year contract with an annual worth of $6 million. And they were prepared to go higher, in both term and salary. How much higher? We'll never know.

There is sweat and science and art in acquiring NHL players. There also is luck. After 13 months, the Redden deal finally can be analyzed -- all of it, including the trade that resulted from his signing. How this thing has turned.

The Jackets wanted Redden for obvious reasons. He was 31 years old, still in his prime. He was good for 30 to 40 points a year, at least, and he had a soaring plus-minus rating. The Jackets wanted and needed a defenseman of his style and stature. They were trumped by the New York Rangers, who offered a six-year deal with an average annual worth of $6.5 million.

Redden didn't even give the Jackets a chance to match. He signed with the Rangers on the first day of the free-agent season, July 1, 2008.

The next morning, Jackets general manager Scott Howson got a call from his counterpart in New York, Glen Sather. With Redden aboard, the Rangers needed salary-cap relief. They were looking to unload defenseman Christian Backman. Were the Jackets interested?

At that point, the Rangers had an annual total of $32.68 million committed to five players -- Redden, fellow defenseman Michal Rozsival, centers Chris Drury and Scott Gomez and goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. The salary cap for the upcoming season was $56.7 million. Something had to give.

The Jackets weren't terrifically interested in Backman, but they did want defenseman Fedor Tyutin. Howson and Sather quickly assembled a deal and, on July 2, it was announced: The Jackets acquired Tyutin and Backman for forwards Nikolai Zherdev and Dan Fritsche.

The trade worked for both sides. Columbus, going back to the days of Doug MacLean, had long coveted Tyutin -- who, at the time of the trade, was 24 years old and thought to have a solid upside as a poised, hard-nosed, minutes-eating defenseman. The Rangers, facing the loss of Jaromir Jagr and falling out of the Marian Hossa derby, needed a scoring winger. Zherdev, while mercurial, was in possession of some of the best hands in the league. And he was 23 years old.

Howson agreed to take on Backman's contract to get the deal done; Backman was due $3.4 million for 2008-09. Sather agreed to take Fritsche, to ease the Jackets' financial burden. Fritsche felt he wasn't being used to his fullest potential in Columbus and that a change might do him well.

The trade had risk for both sides. Early last season, when Zherdev was lighting it up in Madison Square Garden, Sather looked like a genius. And Howson was getting grilled on Hockey Night in Canada, which showed Zherdev highlights with pundits doing voice-overs that went, "How could anyone trade this guy?" As the season wore on, the perception reversed. And now, we are close to a final accounting.

Tyutin is entrenched among the Jackets' top four defensemen, and the Rangers miss him desperately. Backman is an unrestricted free agent.

Fritsche was traded to the Minnesota Wild at midseason and is an unrestricted free agent. Zherdev, though among the Rangers' top scorers last season, disappeared down the stretch and in the playoffs, and he became the target of intense criticism.

Zherdev took the Rangers to salary arbitration. On Monday, he won a one-year award of $3.9 million. The Rangers saw this coming, so they overpaid for free-agent winger Ales Kotalik this month -- ostensibly to replace Zherdev, who remains mercurial and aloof.

Sometime today, it will be revealed whether the Rangers have accepted Zherdev's arbitration award. Likely, they will not, and Zherdev will become an unrestricted free agent.

And then there is Redden. The New York tabloids refer to him as "the biggest waste of cap space in the NHL."

Funny how these things can work out.

Michael Arace is a sports reporter for The Dispatch.

marace@dispatch.com