The season has ended for the Blue Jackets and some may say mercifully. It was a season that no one envisioned at the beginning of the season with big time additions of Jeff Carter, James Wisniewski, Vinny Prospal and Radek Martinek most felt the team would be much approved. Carter mixed like oil with water, Wiz only played 48 games due to injury and suspensions, Martinek only played 7 games due to concussion symptoms and let's throw in Rick Nash asking for a trade and Scott Arniel being fired as head coach and I don't have to tell you what kind of season it was.
Being that there is going to be dozens of questions that this organization will be forced to answer this off season, the main question for CBJ fans: “Is it as bad as it seems?”
When the team was 9 points out of 29th place in the NHL, it's hard to come up with any answer other than yes but I'm not so sure.
With the addition of Jack Johnson to the blue line is exactly what this organization needed and a lot more than a top line center. The pain of having Jeff Carter with this team that by all accounts was one of the worst teammates anyone could dream up may have been worth the anguish. It forced the hand of general manager Scott Howson to divert from the plan and bring in the the do everything defenseman.
Johnson is a player that Howson couldn't have dreamed up to be on this team. A 30 minute a night player that is just as good on the power play as he is on the penalty kill. He's the probable captain for Team USA at the World Championships this summer so being a leader comes natural. He plays with a passion and joy to the game that has been a rare sight in Columbus. One of his past training partners in Michigan is his current line mate James Wisniewski. That partnership should only grow stronger through the summer.
The most important thing with Johnson is that he wants to be in Columbus. Not only was he not against the trade, he was excited to come to Columbus and that hasn't changed.
"It's been awesome,” Johnson said of his stay in Columbus after the final game. “I've had more fun here than I've had in five years of professional hockey."
It's not only Johnson that should have fans thinking that the future of the Blue Jackets is better than the fate of the Titanic. The undoubted finish of any thinking that Steve Mason is a starting goalie with this team is all but certain. This alone is good news as for the last two seasons, management still held out hope that the return of the goalie that won the Calder Trophy would come out. It didn't, it hasn't and most now guess it never will. This means that again management will be forced to find the solution in net. It may come via free agency but more likely through trade.
“We need to get the goaltending situation straightened out,” general manager Scott Howson stated after his post-season meetings with players.
Will Nash stay or will he go. There seems to be a glimmer that Nash may stay now after hearing that Howson met with his star winger when the team was Denver and is set to talk to him in a couple of weeks. What went on during those meetings is anyone's guess. Is Nash warming to the idea of staying? Was Howson asking Nash to expand the list of teams? Does Nash have an award winning chocolate chip cookie recipe that Howson just had to have? Who knows but one must still go with the assumption that Nash will not be wearing a Blue Jackets sweater next season.
Is there any way to look at this as a good thing? I think it could be.
No I haven't stop taking my medication. What most keen CBJ fans see throughout the season in the inconsistent performance of Rick Nash. Some say effort is the reason for this inconsistency and others just say he's a streaky player. One thing, though, is for sure is that players around him and especially on the power play have tendencies to stand around and wait for Nash to do something. Without him being in the lineup it will force others to take it upon themselves to make things happen including in the goal scoring area. The Blue Jackets made it to the playoffs when the team had four 20 goal scorers. Not when Nash won the Rocket Richard and not any other season for that matter. It was when teams couldn't completely focus on Nash, take him away and know they would win.
Where do at least four 20 goal scorers come from without Nash on the squad. R.J. Umberger has now done it four seasons in a row and even with a terrible start still got to the 20 goal mark this year.
Cam Atkinson was born to score goals and there is no reason to believe that he can't pop in 20 plus goals a year for many years to come.
Ryan Nugent Hopkins scored 18 goals in 62 games and Gabriel Landeskog put in 22 goals this season and were first and second selections in last year's draft respectively. If the Jackets win the draft lottery and can select Nail Yakupov, you can put him down for 20 goals.
Where the other 20 goal scorer comes from is only a guess. Derick Brassard could be it but he still seems to want to be more of a play maker than any kind of a goal scorer but he has the skill and ability to pop in 20.
Vinny Prospal has scored 20 or more five times in his career and 19 goals two other seasons which means he is more than able to hit the double dime mark in goals. He scored 16 this season and played in all 82 games. Prospal still is on the downside of his career so to expect him to put up career goal scoring numbers is a little much to ask.
It could come from a player the Jackets get in the Nash trade, a free agent or someone like Ryan Johansen gets a chance to spread his wings and fly. But all will know that goal scoring will come by committee thus forcing all to stay engaged.
Due to the inability of Scott Arniel to mold a group of players into a functioning team or the skill set to deal with the curve balls that every season brings, the CBJ management was forced to fire Arniel and forced to bring Todd Richards in a interim coach. They may have just stumbled onto another part of the answer to improving this organization.
How can I say that when his record was 18-20-2 after taking the helm. I want you to take a Ford Pinto, pop all the tires, drain all the fuel out and then light it on fire and try winning the Indy 500. It's unimaginable on how bad of a situation he was stepping into. Disgruntled players, under performing players, injuries, poor goaltending and who knows what else yet Richards kept it simple and just tried to get the players to regain their joy of the game. It took the rest of January when he took over on the 9th of that month and the team went 2-6-1 his first nine games at the helm. After that the squad that was by far and away the worst team in the NHL went 16-14-1. That final 31 games is at an 87 point pace over 82 games with the team using an ECHL goalie for stretches in Allen York and what was thought to be a has been journeyman netminder in Curtis Sanford.
What this all says that not all is lost. By no stretch is everything right either but the more times that management, coaches and players were forced to respond this season they did better than when they weren't. Forces will be coming down everywhere from ownership on down and creating pressure to make corrections. Pressure can make men perform at their best and other times it makes them crack like cheap plastic. All fans can do now is hope the force is with the Blue Jackets this off season because no fan base deserves to endure another season like the 2011/2012 campaign the Columbus Blue Jackets just went through.