On Mark Cuban, Locker Room Access and the Internet
April 5, 2011While We’re Waiting… Mark Cuban Making Enemies, Drafting Saine, and Buckeye Investigation
April 6, 2011Every Tuesday, WFNY’s The 5-Hole brings you up to date with the goings-on of the CBJ…
The Week That Was
This Week: 1-1-2, 4 points
Overall: 34-32-13, 81 points (5th division; 13th conference)
Tuesday, 3/29 in Columbus – Blue Jackets 3, Panthers 2 – SO – recap
Thursday, 3/31 in Washington – Capitals 4, Blue Jackets 3 – OT – (box) – Highlights
Friday, 4/1 in Columbus – Blackhawks 4, Blue Jackets 3 – SO – (box) – Highlights
Sunday, 4/3 in Columbus – Blues 6, Blue Jackets 1 – recap
The Good: The Jackets, while limping home, have reached their second highest point total in team history. In addition, while the moves didn’t push them into the playoffs, their trading deadline moves freed up a bunch of salary for this coming off-season, which will most likely be a rather large re-shuffling of the roster. Axing Rusty Klesla’s $9 million owed helps in that regard.
In addition, one can say that, with the exception of Sunday’s game against the Blues, the Jackets haven’t quit, despite knowing they were out of the playoff hunt. They took Eastern Conference leading Washington to overtime by three times coming back from a one-goal deficit to tie the game. They took the Blackhawks to a shootout on Friday night, even after officially being eliminated the night before. There are 12 free agents on this club, and it’s safe to say a lot of the guys are playing for their jobs this coming summer. It will be interesting to see who stays and who goes.
The Bad: Another season with promise in February turns into disappointment in March. The Jackets couldn’t raise their game when the season got tough. They couldn’t find ways to score goals when they had to, and also when they generated chance after chance in games they needed to win. Which, in and of itself, speaks to what I perceive the be the greatest deficiency on this roster as we head into the off-season: SKILL. This team has guys that work hard, and guys that can score 15-20 goals in a given season. They have one star in Rick Nash who can carry a team, but who is by his own admission very streaky, and often-times sees so much extra defensive coverage that he can be neutralized. Lastly, this is a roster that, when they found themselves in a lot of make-or-break shootouts late in the season (they’ve lost 7 of their last 8), they had no one other than Nash that could be counted on to provide solid goal-scoring in the skills competition. Think those seven points would have helped? Probably not a playoff appearance, of course, but 88 points right now would be just four out of the eighth spot. If only…
The Jackets’ top six is all under contract for next year, with the exception of RFA Jakub Voracek. However, looming in the system are 2010 #1 pick Ryan Johansen, who scored 40 goals with 52 assists in just 63 games in his junior season this year, and newly acquired college forward Cam Atkinson. The Jackets selected Atkinson in the sixth round in 2008, and he’s been at Boston College since then.
Atkinson, 21, is now playing for Springfield since his season with Boston College is over. His 61 goals over the past two college seasons were the most by anyone in Division I college hockey. He is one of three finalists for the Hobey Baker award, given annually to the top college player in the US. To cap it off, Atkinson scored two goals and helped on two others in his first two games with Springfield over the weekend. He’s not a big dude—5’8” and 175 pounds—but his ability to put the puck in the net is unmatched at the collegiate level right now. "I’m an energy-type of player who loves to score goals and use my speed," said Atkinson. "I’m anxious to get my pro career started." Speed and goal scoring. Tell me the Jackets can’t use more of that.
Up Next
The Jackets have their final three games this week, starting tonight on the road in Dallas (39-28-11, 89pts). They then head to Nashville (42-26-11, 95pts) on Thursday, and then come back home for the finale on Saturday against Buffalo (40-29-10, 90pts). All three of those teams are fighting for playoff spots, with only Nashville assured of one at this point. And then, well, it’s home to watch the other guys keep playing in the playoffs.
By The Numbers
Let’s take a quick look at the Jackets by the numbers, through 79 games:
Scoring:
2.59 gpg (t23rd NHL)
Defense:
3.01 gapg (t25th NHL)
Power Play:
13.9% (28th NHL)
Penalty Kill:
80.5% (22nd NHL)
Goals Leader:
Rick Nash – 32
Assists Leader:
Rick Nash – 34
Points Leader:
Rick Nash – 66
Wins (Goalie):
Steve Mason – 24
Goals-Against Average:
Mathieu Garon – 2.78
Save Percentage:
Steve Mason – 90.3%
Injury Update
The team got returns this week from winger Kristian Huselius and defenseman Anton Stralman, but lost star Rick Nash and goalie Steve Mason to go with forwards Andrew Murray and Chris Clark. Defenseman Grant Clitsome has been out for a couple of weeks as well. With three games left, it would be crazy to rush anyone back. Nash will not travel to Dallas, but may play later in the week.
…With a Little Help from My Friends
We go back one more time to The Dark Blue Jacket, who asks the brilliant question: how bad was it… really?
As we already know, the 2010-11 season [is] the second best in team history – and the best season got the CBJ into the playoffs. Befitting that status, it stands to reason that the team had fewer "dead man walking" days than any other team in team history.
What I find most surprising, however, is the differential between Hitchcock’s 2007-08 squad and this year’s. There were only three extra days of pain in 07-08, and Hitch was still on a trajectory that wound up with the team in the playoffs the following year. Can we say the same about this season? Are we as CBJ fans as optimistic about 11-12 as we may have been going into 08-09? Should we be?
And then, look at 2009-10. A 79-point season, third best in team history, yet eliminated with over a month left in the season. That speaks volumes to the need to keep pace with the conference over the course of the season, and that a late season push only rarely salvages a season to the point of playoff qualification.
It’s pretty clear that the bar is continuing to rise in the Western Conference, and the CBJ are having a tough time keeping up. Compare the 73-point 2006-07 season, where the CBJ wound up in 11th, to 07-08, 09-10 and 10-11. All better seasons from a point total perspective and no better than 13th. Sure, there may have been more three-point games, but it’s awful hard to deny that the West has been increasingly tougher over the years.
…
So yes, it was a rough season…but there were only 9 days of purgatory this time around. I’m still bearish on this roster as currently composed – and have been so for some time – but find that this piece has me pausing to consider the larger picture.
I just don’t feel the same about this roster as I did in 07-08. It’s possible that I still had the bloom on the CBJ newbie rose then and now am deeply into the "familiarity breeds contempt" stage of my CBJ fandom. I’m much sharper in my view of the team and their performance, and I’ve seen enough of the rest of the league to know that there’s no good reason that the Columbus Blue Jackets have been so bad for so long.
It’s also possible that, well, this squad doesn’t have what it takes.
DBJ takes a good, hard look at each and ever CBJ season, and finds comparisons and points of difference between this year’s non-playoff finish and seasons-past. He also discovers some interesting parallels. And, as I commented on DBJ’s piece, my biggest thing about this season is that: when the schedule got tough from the standpoint of lack-of-practice time, that seemed to be what separated the men from the boys in the NHL. When Columbus had ample time between games to practice, they played well… sometimes exceptionally well (14-6-0 once, and 11-3-2 another time). But, the two months that sunk the season were December and March. Common thread? 16 games in 31 days in each month. No practice time.
Why can’t the Jackets deal with it when other teams can? Is it a "new system" kind of thing? One could argue that for December, but March? Shouldn’t professional players know their system after 60 games? Is it a "young guys" thing, like a rookie wall of sorts? Either way, that’s the one thing I would say I can go to in terms of "why did this season fail?"
We’ll look at this more next week once the season is over, including some thoughts on the roster, the need or overhaul, and some responses from GM Scott Howson.
