Arace: Hockey gods have never smiled on the Columbus Blue Jackets
There has long been a suspicion that the Blue Jackets are cursed. How long? Maybe the seed was planted when Nationwide Arena was built on the site of the old Ohio State Penitentiary, with the electric chair at center ice. In fact, the chair was across the street, somewhere in a maze of office and apartment buildings. But it’s a good story.
Maybe the seed was planted back in 2000, when a coin flip decided whether the Jackets or the Minnesota Wild would get the No. 3 pick in the draft. The Jackets lost the flip. They lost it twice – on a toss that was discounted because the coin rolled off the table and on the toss that counted. How wild is that?
It’s the time of year when Old Sparky returns to the consciousness of Columbus fans. It is a spring like many others. The NHL draft lottery reveal is set for 8 p.m. Monday on ESPN and, for the 17th time in 22 years the Jackets are contenders. So to speak.
Once, a Jackets combination of pingpong balls did come up – in half of a two-tiered lottery in 2016. They moved from No. 4 to No. 3 and selected Pierre-Luc Dubois, but they didn’t win the top prize. They never have. Curses!
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Lottery rules have morphed over the years. In any case, the Jackets have had a shot at No. 1 nine times and are 0 for 9. Somebody hates them. The hockey gods? Ernst & Young? Gary Bettman? Somebody.
The Jackets’ lottery lucklessness is the sadistic jolt in a long history of dull pain. Their all-time record is 740 victories, 959 losses (including OTLs) and 33 ties (which were charted in their first four seasons, before overtime rules were changed). These numbers add up to the lowest NHL winning percentage in the 20th century, recent expansion teams included.
If you throw out the 33 ties, do some prorating of partial seasons and average out a typical season, you get something like 36 wins and 46 losses (including OTLs) annually. The Jackets’ first general manager, Doug MacLean, never saw the playoffs. The second, Scott Howson, had one taste. The third, Jarmo Kekalainen, has raised the bar by a notch or two.
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Over Kekalainen’s 10 seasons – with the prorating of partial seasons, etc. − the Jackets have been good for around 44 wins annually, with a winning percentage of .536. They’ve made the playoffs five times since 2013.
Still. They’ve won exactly one playoff series, ever. That’s a talent problem that is best addressed in the draft.
For lottery reasons, I like the fact that injuries helped push the Jackets into the tank in 2022-23. It’s better to understand you need more high-end talent rather than pretend you don't suck.
I don’t like that the Jackets beat Pittsburgh in overtime in Game 81, fell (up) out of last place and nearly halved their chance at getting Connor Bedard. It conjured so many years when meaningless victories in February, March and April worsened the team's chances at getting Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews.
This franchise needs every chance it can get to win the lottery because it never wins the lottery. Even in 2012, the only time the Jackets were the No. 1 seed in the lottery, they lost the lottery. Did it matter that it was a poor draft class? It was an "L."
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The 2006 lottery is an all-time favorite, especially for conspiracy theorists. Coming out of a yearlong lockout, there were no standings to inform a draft order and weight a lottery. The league gave the best odds at No. 1 (6.2%) to the four teams that had hadn’t reached the previous three postseasons or won any of the previous four lotteries – Pittsburgh, Buffalo, the New York Rangers and the Jackets.
Pittsburgh won Sidney Crosby and was saved from bankruptcy. The Jackets wound up picking No. 6, selected Gilbert Brule instead of Anze Kopitar and the rest is history that continues to this day. We could talk more about some of the awful years of bad drafting decisions here, but why not just shove a pencil in your eye socket and go about your business? It’s less painful.
The lottery reveal will be a revelation for whichever franchise wins it. Bedard is the real deal. (He’s not McDavid; maybe, but Steve Yzerman may be a good comparison.) The Jackets have a 13.5% chance of winning Bedard and a 41.7% chance of picking fourth, where they’ll still be in range of getting a top-line center, but they might be out of range of an instant-impact player.
Jackets fans are accustomed to pain. They’ve already acclimated themselves to what they perceive to be the team’s chances of winning the lottery. They expect the Jackets to fall to No. 4, and they’re wondering when the hockey gods, Ernst & Young and Uncle Gary will ever give them a break.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets history of dull pain is acute when NHL plays lottery
