When John Tortorella said things wouldn't go as smoothly this year, he wasn't kidding.
The Blue Jackets are up against it in a big way right now.
They're without Zach Werenski, Ryan Murray, Brandon Dubinsky, Alexander Wennberg and now Cam Atkinson, who suffered a broken foot on Saturday per a report from Aaron Portzline of The Athletic. Tortorella is a proponent of focusing on who's here and not who's out, but at some point, the losses become too much to ignore.
For the foreseeable future, this is a massively depleted group. Down the middle, on defense, and now they're losing wingers – it's easy to say there's opportunity for younger players (that hasn't changed since the start of the season with several veterans struggling), but it's not just opportunity they need. The Blue Jackets need production.
Names like Sonny Milano, Oliver Bjorkstrand and a few others will get moved higher in the lineup. Their No. 1 line of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Artemi Panarin and Josh Anderson will get most if not all of the opposition's attention, and special teams are even more scrutinized in such a situation.
Oh, and then there's the goaltender. The Blue Jackets scratched out a 2-1 shootout win on Saturday thanks in large part to Sergei Bobrovsky, who was masterful even before he went 3-for-3 in the skills competition. He's going to need to carry the mail here to keep the Blue Jackets afloat, because their offense is going to struggle at times.
If there's any good news, it's that the injuries aren't season-ending and these guys will be back eventually. Werenski is likely the first to get back in the lineup, perhaps as early as this week. The fact there's been no update on Murray since the started skating on his own is particularly troubling, but we may get more clarity this week.
"With the youth of the team and the building of the team long-term...finding a way to win short-term and as we move forward and (with) guys being put in positions they wouldn't be put in this year if it wasn't for some of the things going on with our team," Tortorella said after Saturday's game.
"It's the way the league is. There are injuries in the game. As everybody says: next guy up, and we're just trying to find our way."
"NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS"
Now that the hype and buzz around The Last Jedi will begin tapering off, that means we have a few months until Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters.
For Star Wars fans, that's great news – but apparently, Lucasfilm and Disney don't feel the same way. Over the weekend, Slashfilm reported that Disney doesn't have high hopes for the latest anthology film from the industry's biggest franchise, and that some in their ranks are expecting it "to bomb."
On the outside, it's not all that surprising: the original directors were fired midway through shooting, Ron Howard stepped in to complete the project and had to reshoot more of the movie than originally anticipated, the lead actor (Alden Ehrenreich) needed an acting coach on-set for his scenes and the release date hasn't changed despite all of that.
We're supposed to get a trailer for Solo this week. As the famous smuggler once said, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
YOU SHOULD BE READING
- Here's more on what we know so far on Atkinson, who is expected to miss at least a month.
- Kyle Morrison's "What We Learned" gives props to Pierre-Luc Dubois' meteoric rise.
- Markus Nutivaara has stepped up in the absence of Zach Werenski, elevating his game and his defense partner's.
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