Where would the Blue Jackets be without Pierre-Luc Dubois?
The best part of that question is...you would've never thought it reasonable to ask a few months ago.
But the reality, too, is that the Blue Jackets have suffered from losing William Karlsson (expansion draft), Sam Gagner (free agency) and not having Alexander Wennberg up to full speed for most of the season. Wennberg's game has taken a tick upward over the last week or so, but an injury and inconsistency have tossed him off-pace from his great season a year ago.
When other options fizzled and John Tortorella needed someone to center Artemi Panarin, he looked to Dubois. Experiment? Probably. Wishful thinking that something might click? Perhaps. But the result has given the Blue Jackets a lift during a rough patch of the 82-game schedule, and may have solidified a true No. 1 line on a team that's lacking an identity right now.
Yes, we're talking about the 19-year-old Dubois. His emergence has been the brightest of highlights early on in 2017-18, and to think: he started the season on the wing, looked uncomfortable, and we weren't really sure if he would see much time at center in his rookie NHL season.
Boy, has that ever been flipped on its head.
Dubois is as skilled as he is determined, and hasn't tried to mold his game to fit with Panarin and Josh Anderson. He's just done what he always has: be strong on the puck, distribute when the opportunity arises, and get his nose dirty around the front of the net. Sometimes, it's less about trying to "fit" with your line mates and more about doing what you do well and letting the rest take care of itself.
They've driven play and owned the puck. They've been the sole source of 5-on-5 offense since Tortorella put them together. And, for the time being, Dubois has made the absences of those aforementioned forwards a bit more tolerable.
There's one hell of a future ahead for Dubois and he's only scratching the surface.
STAR WARS TAKES
Just a couple of things to chew on today...
Hello everyone. Porgs are good https://t.co/5KjdglplQv
— Miles Surrey (@HKSurrey) December 19, 2017
Big fan of this piece. Mainly because porgs are not good, but great.
And, this:
I think it's very hard to enjoy a movie if you've spent two years theorizing and inventing your own movie.
— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) December 18, 2017
That's from Entertainment Weekly's Anthony Breznican, who is one of the most plugged-in Star Wars reporters on the planet. He calls out an inherent problem with complaints about The Last Jedi: in this age of Reddit, most diehards spent two years concocting the plot, storylines and themes in their heads. When it turned out the movie wasn't what they'd planned for, they hated it.
Don't be those people.
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