At the end of the 2014-15 NHL season there was a buzz in the capital city of Ohio, the Columbus Blue Jackets had made the playoffs for the first time in five years. It was just their second playoff appearance in their thirteen year history and the Blue Jackets fans were hoping this time would go better than the previous time. Getting swept by the Detroit Red Wings in 2009 was like a playoff tease which made the fans hungrier for success.
After some big changes like trading long time captain and fan favorite Rick Nash and a move from the western conference to the east in realignment the Blue Jackets finally got another chance at the postseason. Officially landing the first wild card spot the earned the right to play the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round of the playoffs. After losing game one the franchise finally got win number one in the playoffs beating the Penguins in game two in double overtime. The highlight of the series though might have been game four, being down 3-0 in just over ten minutes of play the Blue Jackets came back and tied the game with a dramatic late tying goal and an OT winner to even the series two.
The series wouldn’t turn out how the fans wanted losing four games to two but it was considered a big building block. The team had good young players and a hard to play against mentality. Going into the next season a lot of people had Columbus returning to the playoffs and building off a successful previous season.
The season did not start very good at all. In fact the season started awfully. Winning the first two games and three of the first four games of the season that was almost the last thing to cheer for during the season for the Blue Jackets. A nine game losing streak from October 24th-November 11th and losing seventeen of their first twenty-three games buried the Blue Jackets for good just a month an a half in.
That start meant Columbus had have a heck of a second half of the season to get back into the playoffs. The Blue Jackets for the most part remained average through most of the season and even endured another seven game losing streak at the end of February and into March. Still the team didn’t lie down and die, from March 6th to the end of the season on April 11th the Jackets only lost two games in regulation and three games total. It wouldn’t be enough unfortunately, missing the playoffs by nine points.
Most teams and players don’t like to use excuses saying usually no matter the circumstance they still control their own fate. The Blue Jackets have a pretty valid excuse though. A franchise record 508 man games lost to injury. Aaron Portzline I think said it best over at bluejacketsxtra.dispatch.com,
“Ten players missed 23 or more games, including Bobrovsky, three centers (Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov and Mark Letestu) and the most polished defenseman (Murray).
At one point in November, 11 of the Blue Jackets’ projected starting 20 players — and $32?million of their $66?million payroll — were out of the lineup. All told, the 508 man-games cost the Blue Jacket’s roughly $16.7?million in lost salary, more than 25 percent of their payroll.”
Lets face it not many if any team in sports could overcome issues like that. If you want to know more detail about the injury problems the Blue Jackets had I’ll leave you a link to the rest of Aaron’s article at the end of this blog.
With struggles to stay healthy it’s like the 2014-15 season was a wasted season. Fans can have the mentality of throw it away and lets start fresh next season.
Management can’t exactly think that way though because there was issues, even with the injuries they can always get better. Defense was a big issue during the season last year for Columbus, a 3.02 goals against average and 33.4 shots allowed per game are way waay to high. Even the 80.2% on the penalty kill was pretty bad all those three stats were bottom third of the entire NHL. Offensively this team is fine, 2.77 goals per game and 21.7% power play is great. The defense killed them, and you can blame injuries if you want, but even in the hot finish it wasn’t an odd sight to see the Blue Jackets give up three or more goals.
A team mentality most likely, staying healthy will trim the goals down as well, nearly the same team had a goals against average of 2.61 the year they made the playoffs and 30.8 shots allowed per game, still high but better. Defense and goaltending will be better next season.
Offense is and will be good and maybe better. You’d think Nick Foligno will come down a little bit from his thirty-one goals and seventy plus points but he’ll hover around that. Ryan Johansen should be the same if not a little higher mid twenties in goals and seventy plus points. Scott Hartnell and Cam Atkinson will provide great depth and Jack Johnson will contribute from the back end. And to add to the riches the Blue Jackets went out and made one of the biggest splashes in the off-season acquiring Brandon Saad from the Chicago Blackhawks. Losing Artem Anisimov will hurt but Saad will get more points than Anisimov anyways so it doesn’t really matter.
Missing the playoffs meant the Blue Jackets had a pretty high pick in the 2015 NHL draft as well. In a deep draft that meant the franchise was going to land a pretty good player, and they did. Zach Werenski, One of the top ranked defenseman in the draft from Michigan and possibly a fixture on the blue line for years to come.
After a couple of off-seasons where teams overreacted to bad playoff performances or missing the playoffs all together Columbus did not have to do that. This team has a good system and good players and should be able to make the playoffs. I can’t pen them in just yet though, we’ve seen the NHL is maybe the deepest league in sports, a tough stretch can put you out for good and the metro division isn’t weak. The Blue Jackets will still have to deal with the New York Rangers, Washington Capitals, New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins.
It’ll be a tough road to make the playoffs but after a good off-season and hopefully players resting up and staying healthy in the season this Columbus Blue Jackets team will be a tough one to handle.
As I said above the injury issues were to much to say in this blog. If you want to know more about these struggles click right here to go to Aaron Portzline’s article on bluejacketsxtra.dispatch.com.
