Columbus Blue Jackets’ identity crisis
Early season adversity can break a team or mold a champion.
Remember when the New York Rangers were 3-7-0 out of the chute last season, at one point giving up 20 goals in three games? They found their footing.
Remember when the Buffalo Sabres started 1-8-1? They, uh, didn’t.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are 4-8-0 through 12 games, playing through injuries great and small to their lineup – missing two thirds of their top line, and now their starting goalie, for example.
What’s been troubling, however, is the way they haven’t looked like the Blue Jackets that stunned the NHL with a playoff berth last season. That tenacity, an almost Western Conference-like physicality and intensity, it’s been missing.
So they skated on Wednesday. Hard. Lung-achingly.
From Shawn Mitchell at the Dispatch:
“It was no surprise,” defenseman Fedor Tyutin said, dripping sweat at his stall after practice. “It’s the way it works and the way it should be, really. “If a guy doesn’t want to give 100 percent during a game, then it’s going to happen in practice. This is not a country club where you can just work whenever you want. It’s normal, and I think it’s good for our team at this point. Hopefully, we learned a big lesson.”
“The way we’ve played the last six games, no, that has nothing to do with it,” he said. “It’s not about missing guys. If we were working hard the way we can, the way we have in the past, we wouldn’t be where we’re at right now, not even with all the injuries.”
Were the Blue Jackets ever referred to as a "country club" team last season? Like, even once?
Look, there’s something to be said for injuries decimating a lineup. The Hockey Gods have been cruel to Columbus in ways they weren’t last season.
But there’s also something to be said about how a team responds to them, and losing six straight including one against the equally lowly Carolina Hurricanes isn’t acceptable.
Said Coach Todd Richards: “I don’t believe in using practice as punishment, but there are days when I think you have to.”
Maybe that’s enough to jolt the Jackets into being themselves again.
MORE NHL ON YAHOO SPORTS
