The 5-Hole: Blue Jackets News and Notes – 3/2/10 – Back-to-Action Edition

Every Tuesday, WFNY’s The 5-Hole brings you up to date with the goings-on of the CBJ…

The Week That Was

This Week: no games
Overall: 25-28-10, 60 points (5th division; 14th conference)

Aaaaand, we’re back. After a stellar Olympic tournament that saw the US and Canada play a game for all time for the gold medal on Sunday, the NHL gets its regular season started back up with no rest for the weary (Detroit and Colorado played Monday night). Our own Blue Jackets are back in action Tuesday night, with 19 games to go to finish the season. To even sniff the playoffs, it’s going to take a crazy 16-3 kind of run to get there. Do the Jackets have it in them? Doubtful. But, first:

Olympic Player Update

*team won Gold Medal

Rick Nash was by far the best Jacket in the Olympics (shocking, I know). Versus studio analyst Darren McCarty even said that Nash was the best player in the entire tournament… period. With apologies to US goalie Ryan Miller—who won the MVP—I would say Nash deserves to be in the discussion.

Nobody from the Jackets’ Olympic contingent had a horrible tournament; Jan Hejda looked like his old self, finishing +4 in five games. Milan Jurcina’s surprising Slovakian team made it to the Bronze Medal game, losing to Finland. The players for the disappointing Teams Sweden and Russia (both failing to make the Medal Round) weren’t expected to be big contributors, but played OK by not really hurting their teams (see +/- ratings).

In the end, Nash definitely called some attention to the Blue Jackets, as he was front-and-center early and often for Team Canada (and kudos to the NBC announcers for often pointing out that he plays in/for Columbus).

The other big news this week is that the NHL Trading Deadline is Wednesday afternoon. Unlike last year, the Jackets will be sellers again instead of buyers. The two names kicked around the most are upcoming UFAs Raffi Torres and Milan Jurcina. At least four teams have been rumored to be kicking the tires on Torres (Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Tampa Bay), and Jurcina’s size and rental status could be enticing to some teams, and his decent play in the Olympics couldn’t have hurt. Two teams rumored to be interested are Ottawa, and Washington… yes, the same Washington that traded him here two months ago. So there that is.

One player who was rumored to be on the block was defenseman Jan Hejda. The Dispatch writers are saying no way, no how to those rumors, however. I would also not be surprised to hear something come up for forward Fredrik Modin. Finally, the Jackets have made one deal already, albeit a minor-league one: they sent defenseman Dylan Reese to the New York Islanders for forward Greg Moor (yeah, I don’t know who they are, either). Moore is 25 (yikes), and has only ever played six games in the NHL. For the Islanders. YIKES. Moore was sent to Syracuse.

Up Next

The Jackets are back in action this week, and it’s another murderer’s row of three games starting Tuesday night at home against Vancouver (37-22-2, 76pts). They then embark on their last ookie road trip of the season, heading out to the West coast for the final time. They play in San Jose (40-13-9, 89pts) on Saturday, and continue in Los Angeles (37-20-4, 78pts) on Monday. They finish their West Coast Cali road trip next week and then are done with anything west of the Central Time Zone for the rest of the season. Phew.

Full Schedule

Injury Update

The big injury news over the break came this past week when we learned that defenseman Rostislav Klesla will possibly need additional surgery on his hip to repair a labral tear. The problem was discovered during his rehab from tears to his groin and abdomen that he suffered on November 30 against St. Louis. Klesla is meeting with a Nashville-based hip specialist on March 15 to determine whether he needs surgery. In short, if he needs the surgery, he’s done for the year. Though, at this point, if he’s not even considering playing until after this March 15 meeting, he’s done for the year already.

Not much else out there to report, people. Let’s get back to the games!