Arace: The NHL playoffs table is largely set and the Blue Jackets don't have a place
The NHL table is largely set by Thanksgiving.
Last season, 12 of the 16 teams in a playoff position on Thanksgiving Day made the playoffs. The season before that, same thing. This is the trend in the salary cap era, which began in 2005-06. You can call it the 77% rule, and name it after Ray Bourque, who famously wore that number. (Or, if you like, the Nick Blankenburg.)
Throw out the shortened seasons, go by points percentage and in the salary cap era, 184 of the 240 teams who were holding a playoff position on Thanksgiving Day wound up making the playoffs. That’s right, 77%. Four-team divisions, six-team divisions, doesn’t matter, 77%.
Thanksgiving is a week away. The Blue Jackets, after losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-3 in Nationwide Arena Tuesday night, are in last place in the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference. Barring a miracle, these Jackets (4-8-4) will miss the playoffs for the fourth season in a row.
That is not the worst thing in the world. General manager Jarmo Kekalainen has stockpiled some serious, young talent over the past few years. One more lottery pick would extend the pipeline. How would you like another Adam Fantilli type? Man, that kid can play.
I would submit that few sane Jackets fans expected the team to make the playoffs this season. That doesn’t mean there is not frustration. They are frustrated because they want to see a clear vision, and they can’t.
The management team of John Davidson, president of hockey operations, and Kekalainen steadied the franchise when they came aboard in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The Jackets made the playoffs four years in a row from 2016-2020. This was exciting stuff given the team’s sorry history, yet, at their peak, the Jackets won but a single playoff series.
Starting with the failed gambit of trading for Marian Gaborik in 2013, they have neither built a team that can go deep nor fully committed to a rebuild. There was a hint of strength (the few months of the “all-in” campaign at the end of the 2019-20 season) and a glimmer of a rebuild (they pulled the plug and aimed for the lottery after Zach Werenski got hurt last season). But in the decade since Davidson talked about “building brick-by-brick,” the overall plan has been poorly defined. The same goes for the on-ice product.
Bringing back John Tortorella in the final year of his contract was a mistake. Torts did some excellent work here, but, in the end, he had to know there was nothing left to squeeze out of that roster. The Brad Larsen era was largely a mess, which was why he was fired after two seasons. The decision to hire Mike Babcock was a disaster and an embarrassment. That bears repeating. The decision to hire Mike Babcock was a disaster and an embarrassment.
One can feel for Tortorella and Larsen, and now for Pascal Vincent. They were told they had playoff-caliber rosters. Larsen was gifted Johnny Gaudreau, who came with a seven-year, $68.25-million contract. (He has one goal this season, an empty netter.) I suspect that it was Babcock who pushed to acquire defensemen Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson, who came with an eight-year, $50 million contract. The two blueliners were going to fix what was wrong with the defense and rejuvenate goaltender Elvis Merzlikins. How’s that working out?
Anaheim, the second-worst team in the league last year after the Jackets, is projecting a different image. As Ducks GM Pat Verbeek told the LA Times last winter, “(A typical rebuild) takes five years. I’m hoping to shorten that, but that’s kind of the reality of how long it really takes you to be a consistent, serious contender.”
Fans can embrace such a vision. Last season, fans flocked to Nationwide to watch their young players finish in last place. They went to watch Kent Johnson and Kirill Marchenko, to debate the relative merit of Adam Boqvist, and so forth. They want to believe there is something better coming two or even three years down the road. They want to hope.
This season, the vision is blurred.
Young defenseman David Jiricek, a former first-round pick, was told to find a lease on a Columbus property one day, then he was sent to AHL Cleveland, then he was recalled to fill the roster spot of an injured forward. Wait. What?
The glut of defensemen is such that Andrew Peeke and Boqvist have been scratched 12 times apiece. There is a surfeit of underperforming forwards, many of whom have been inconsistent for years. Johnson, who had 40 points last season, his rookie year, has been sent down to Cleveland.
What’s the plan here?
Kekalainen doesn’t have a salary-cap problem, but his roster is muddled. Are the Jackets committed to a rebuild, which requires personnel decisions that are focused on the future? Or does management still think this is a playoff team, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Thanksgiving is one week away. This is not a playoff team.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: If the Columbus Blue Jackets have a vision, it's difficult to see
