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| Brandon Saad |
When I last left this space I had gone to my happy place, the
All-Star Game. It's time now to return
to the harsh reality of the 2015-16 season.
A defensive corps that was adequate for the preseason suddenly showed up
as deficient once the regular season started, and a CBJ squad that had high
hopes suddenly found itself the proud possessors of an NHL record, and a new
coach. The NHL record, of course, is the
worst start for any team except a Rangers team that had all of its players in
the military fro WWII. For the Blue Jackets, this
represented an 0 for 8 debacle that killed the season before it ever got
started. Enter John Tortorella, a stark
change from the soft spoken Todd Richards.
I confess to a degree of trepidation when Tortorella was first named. He had seemed to become
increasingly volatile in his transition from the Rangers to the Canucks,
culminating in a legendary foray into the opponents locker area between
periods, a stunt that got him suspended.
Tortorella seems to have gotten the message from the league, and while
still brutally honest in his assessments, has stayed away from anything too
colorful. I maintain that this is a
really important assignment for John, and if he flames out with the CBJ, it
will really hurt his coaching career. On
the other hand, there is a body of evidence that suggests that he is precisely the
correct choice for this franchise at this time.
Make no mistake, John has his sights set on returning to the
promised land, and the 2016-17 season will likely only be a step in that direction. But I think Torts has the perspective to see
where he stands across the league, and coach his team accordingly. Keep in mind he is the winningest US coach. This is not an accident, and Columbus is a
good place for this guy to return to the heights. But this is the perspective of the season
past, not the burning pain of watching our beloved CBJ cash in a season before
Halloween. I had thought that had gone out
of style with Scott Arniel. But those
die were cast before Tortorella's arrival.
When Tortorella parachuted into the hostile territory of the CBJ
in early October the team was already sporting an 0-7 record. Once Torts started, they finished the month
with 2 wins, 3 losses, and 0 overtime losses (2-3-0), to finish the month of
October, 2015 with a record of 2-10-0 and a whopping 4 points in the standings
to show for 12 games. To redress a
deficit like that, the team would have to pull off a serious winning streak,
but they seemed incapable of stringing together the serious streaks that they
had shown in previous years. The defense
and the goal tending were simply not up to the task.
November was better, and the team turned in an 8-5-0 record. Good if you did it every month but not enough
to allow you to be making any kind of a serious challenge to playoff
position. Problematically, a 4-7-3
December essentially drove a stake in the heart of any nascent thoughts of a
comeback to the playoffs. As 2015 turned
to 2016, the CBJ were not yet mathematically eliminated, but we're pretty much
done for the year in terms of the playoffs.
The rest of the way they went 20-18-5 (January to April), essentially a
.500 record when you needed a much higher winning percentage if you wanted to
climb back into the playoffs.
At this point, it was going to get a little bit hard to write
about this season. This isn't the first
season I sat in the stands to watch the Jackets play out the string from
January through April. For me, it is still entertainment,
in spite of the mind numbing frustration.
However, once 2015 came to a close, a series of events started to make
2016 much more interesting in spite of the known lack of playoff position.
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| Ryan Johansen |
On January 6, 2016, the CBJ world changed dramatically when the
news broke that the Jackets had traded center Ryan Johansen to Nashville for
defenseman Seth Jones. I am one of those
that view this trade as a pure hockey trade.
Quality for quality. It is true
that Nashville was dealing from a position of strength, but the needs of the
two organizations overlapped nicely. Jarmo had expressed confidence in his defense at the beginning of 2015-16, and
was let down horribly by the inadequacies of the group, in scoring and in
defense. So he set about making dramatic
changes. Capitalizing on the hope
brought on by the drafting of Zach Werenski the previous year, Jarmo added a
young defenseman with a considerable upside in exchange for our best potential first line center. This is a trade that
CBJ fans will dissect for years to come, but at present I think it will help both
clubs and both players. That makes it a good hockey
trade.
This trade, however, did not rocket the Jackets higher the
standings. A 5-5-2 record in January
ensured that mediocrity was the best they could hope for this year, but a funny
thing was happening for the team.
Bobrovsky had gone down with a groin injury in December, attempted to
return in January, hurt himself again, and didn't return until March. In the meantime, at the beginning of January,
Curtis McElhinney was injured as well.
This left the team with two call ups from the AHL, Anton Forsberg and
Joonas Korpisalo in the goal. Forsberg
did not fare well in the NHL in this call up, saving a story book ending for
later in the season with the Lake Erie Monsters (now Cleveland Monsters). In the meantime, Joonas Korpisalo began to
gather himself as an NHL goal tender and helped stake the team to a 7-3-3
record in February.
The return of Bobrovsky to health pushed Anton Forsberg down to
the AHL affiliate Monsters, where he began to put together a streak of fine
goal tending that will be described on another day. Don't give up on this kid as an NHL goal
tender. Korpisalo, on the other hand,
started to string together some very good games for a young netminder, and
played some very solid hockey, even pushing Bobrovsky to the bench on occaision.
March was a disappointment, as the team went 4-9-0 in March, to
solidify a strong drafting position.
Unfortunately, in a maddening fashion unique to the Blue Jackets, with a
generational player available in the first draft slot, the CBJ went 4-1-0 down
the stretch in April against some teams in full on tank mode, but finishing
with a win against defending Cup Champions, and at that time favorite to repeat,
Chicago.
So there we were, another season out of the playoffs. The CBJ finished 34-40-8, so ~6 games below
.500, when you started out 0-8. Let's
face it, if you start 0-8, and have plan C in the goal for an extended stretch
of the season, as an NHL team you are in deep trouble, no matter how well plan
C plays. The flame out of plans A and B
are going to cost you dearly. For
success going forward, the Jackets need to see a better performance in
goal.
That is not to say that this disastrous season lies only at Bob's
knee pads. The under performance was
pretty wide spread, with a few exceptions.
Boone Jenner scored more than 30 goals, recovering from an injury filled
sophomore campaign. Brandon Saad, a
surprise acquisition in the off season, set a personal best in goals and
scoring, a very nice performance in the unfamiliar role of playing for a
loser. Cam Atkinson continued to grow
his goal scoring totals. But other than
these players, most of the group had underwhelming seasons.
Cam Atkinson and Brandon Saad finished tied for the team lead in
scoring in 2015-16, with 53 points each.
Saad scored more goals, finishing with 31 goals and 22 assists for his
53 points, while Cam went 27-26-53.
These point totals are a sharp drop and a sharp contrast from the 73 and
71 points scored by Nick Foligno and Ryan Johansen respectively in the 2014-15
season. The only commonality between the
two seasons was that Scott Hartnell finished third in scoring, with 49 points
(23-26-49) in 2015-16 vs 60 points in 2014-15.
Surprisingly, Boone Jenner finished 30-19-49 for a personal best season
in the NHL, which got him rewarded with a new contract. I don't know if this is a realistic
expectation for Boone going forward, but if he repeats these numbers a couple
of times it could be real trouble for the rest of the NHL.
Dubinsky finished a distant 5th in goals with 17, but added 31
assists for 48 points to finish 5th in scoring.
Alexander Wennberg finished 6th, and Nick Foligno finished 7th in
scoring with 37 points, just about half of the points he scored the previous
year. To call it a tough year for Nick
would be a massive understatement.
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| Joonas Korpisalo |
Highlighting a huge problem for the Blue Jackets in 2015-16,
Joonas Korpisalo, a rookie, lead the goal tenders in wins (16), save percentage
(.920) and goals against average (2.60) in 31 games. Joonas was plan C (or D) coming into the
season, and illustrates the collapse of the organization's plan for the goal tenders. Sergei Bobrovsky only played 37 games, and
Curtis McElhinney played in 12. The
performance by the first two does not meet expectations, even taking injury
into account. This position MUST have a
better result in 2016-17.
Not that the goal tenders got any help from the defensive corps,
especially early on in the losing streak.
They seemed to be unable to take away time and space from other players. For the most part, if you give any NHL forward the kind of space the
Jackets were giving up early on, they have a real good chance of scoring, and a
lot of them did. This is just my
personal observation, and perhaps subject to dispute, but there is no disputing
that they started the season unable to play defense. Jarmo Kekalainen, when asked about his
defense before the season had expressed confidence. That confidence was misplaced, and before the
year was half over Jarmo was spending his most valuable asset in an attempt to
shore up the defense.
Jack Johnson, Fedor Tyutin, Ryan Murray, David Savard, Justin
Falk, Dalton Prout, Cody Goloubef all started slow. At least Murray had the excuse of not having played for a year. Tyutin and
Falk are now gone, Tyutin having been bought out in the off season, and Falk
signing a contract with another organization.
The overall impact of the poor play of this ground is that it will look
substantially different when the 2016-17 season starts. Seth Jones has come in from the Johansen
trade, Zach Werenski has finished his college career and had a good start with
excellent AHL experience (to be covered in a later post), and Ryan Murray seems
to have shaken off the rust of the early part of he 2015-16 season. Instead of Johnson and Savard as the top
pairing, now we are looking at Seth Jones and Ryan Murray. Zach Werenski will add slick puck moving and
a hard shot that finds the net to another pair.
He will also learn some hard lessons at the hands of NHL veterans, the
same process every rookie goes through.
Organizationally, things look good in the future, as the pipeline
of young talent seems to be producing, and a high draft position results in
another wave of young talent coming into the development system. The exploits of these youngsters at the Lake
Erie, now Cleveland, Monsters will be discussed later, as I said.
The 2015-16 season for the Columbus Blue Jackets could be summed
up by saying expectations were shattered.
In what has been called their most disappointing season, they set an NHL
record for futility, got their coach fired, and were out of the playoffs by
Halloween. Finishing with 76 points, a
very underwhelming number, they have real work to do in 2016-17 to sniff the
playoffs. The pressure from the
youngsters below is a real reason to think things might incrementally improve.
I find it rather ironic that this is Part XIII of this history. The 2015-16 NHL season was a forgettable year for the Columbus
Blue Jackets, and they certainly didn't have, or make much luck. Some people thing 13 is a lucky number, some people don't. It is hoped that the results of last year simmers in the guts of the players the way it does for Jarmo Kekalainen, and
that they show a response in the upcoming year. I think we all believed they were a better team than the result of last year. Fortunately, we do not have long to wait for the new season, and a fresh
beginning. Thus, we can thankfully close
the book on the 2015-16 season.
GO JACKETS!!
GO MONSTERS!!
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