The Blue Jackets are in some historic territory when it comes to their representation at the upcoming NHL Awards in Las Vegas.
Sure, they’ve had some big winners and a few snubs along the way (every team can lay a similar claim), but until 2017, they have not been as top-heavy in the awards category as they will be next week.
And, of course, that’s to be expected after a record-setting season in which the Blue Jackets amassed club records in wins (50) and points (108), while qualifying for the Stanley Cup tournament for the third time in their history. Their third-place finish in the Metropolitan Division is also their highest finish, and it assuredly would have been higher if not for the death trap that the division turned out to be.
The only two teams ahead of the Blue Jackets in the league standings: Washington and Pittsburgh, who were also ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division.
Even more striking about their season is where it came from; several players enjoyed career-high or surprising bounce-back seasons. Their head coach, John Tortorella, was a popular pick to be the first coach fired and some fans believed it was time to move on from goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
Two of those men – Bobrovsky and Tortorella – are odds-on favorites to win awards given to the best in their class. Bobrovsky, who won 41 games and posted a .930-plus save percentage, leads the way among Vezina Trophy finalists and Tortorella’s case for the Jack Adams is a legitimate one.
The Blue Jackets have four finalists for five awards. Here’s an overview of their candidacies and the chances they hoist hardware next week in Vegas:
JOHN TORTORELLA | JACK ADAMS AWARD
He won’t get credit in awards voting for this, but when Tortorella took over from Todd Richards in October 2015, he inherited a Blue Jackets team that redefined “wayward.”
All the hype and expectations leading into the season overwhelmed them. They couldn’t get out of their own way and, with each loss, a little more air left the room. Tortorella knew he couldn’t save the sinking ship that was 2015-16, but he was hell-bent on making sure the following season would not be a repeat.
Training camp, a popular topic among his players over the summer, lived up to its billing. It was demanding, exhausting and as much mental as it was physical. The purpose was to set the tone for the season, and get the players in the mindset that “no matter what comes your way, you’re going to figure it out together.”
Despite a bumpy start, the Blue Jackets used a 16-game winning streak to run their record to 27-5-4 to begin the 2017 calendar year and effectively locking down a playoff spot by Valentine’s Day.
Tortorella guided them through a season that could have gone off the rails on a number of occasions, including a stretch during their winning streak that saw their shot differentials and reliance on goaltending spike higher than usual. But, for the most part, the Blue Jackets were a completely different team than they were a season ago.
They were a solid puck possession team, which they were not last season. Their goaltending was elite, which it was far from in 2015-16. They were relatively healthy, which was not the case the previous two seasons. And their special teams, led by assistant coaches Brad Larsen (power play) and Brad Shaw (penalty kill), came through in big moments to keep the train rolling.
Competition: Mike Babcock (Toronto), Todd McLellan (Edmonton)
Prediction: Tortorella wins Jack Adams Award
VEZINA TROPHY & HART TROPHY | SERGEI BOBROVSKY
This is the guy who said he had lost confidence in his game. The guy who looked, at times during the previous season, that he couldn’t stop a puck three times its size. Bobrovsky’s struggles out of the gate in 2015-16 permeated the rest of the club, leading the Blue Jackets down a dark path that resulted in the firing of Todd Richards.
But when he was named Russia’s starting goaltender for the World Cup of Hockey, some within the organization believed it would be a good thing for Bobrovsky to get a jump-start on 2016-17. One of the reasons was that Bobrovsky is a slow starter, and usually doesn’t hit his stride until the midpoint of the season. Another was that something positive needed to happen in his game, and Bobrovsky was lights-out for Russia during the two-week tournament in Toronto.
His game was sharp as a tack right from the start. The Blue Jackets didn’t need him very often early in the season, but he had moments of brilliance during their streak that both kept it going and reinforced the notion that Bob was back, and he was back in a big way.
Reminder: the Vezina is a regular season award, before you “well, actually” me with his playoff performance. McDavid figures to be the front-runner the Hart, given to the league’s MVP.
The data is hard to beat: 41 wins, a career-high seven shutouts, .931 save percentage. It was the kind of season that every goalie dreams of, where your game is so consistent that the team is still winning when you’re a little bit off.
Most important, though, is the GS (games started) number – 63. Bobrovsky, who has battled chronic groin issues the last three years, got through the season without issue. Those 63 starts came after two weeks of regular action at the World Cup of Hockey and, on the tail end, two weeks of the Stanley Cup playoffs in which he made five starts.
Competition: Carey Price (Montreal), Braden Holtby (Washington) for the Vezina; Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh), Connor McDavid (Edmonton) for the Hart
Prediction: Bobrovsky wins Vezina Trophy
CALDER MEMORIAL TROPHY | ZACH WERENSKI
You’d have been deemed foolish if, a year ago, you proclaimed the Blue Jackets’ biggest offseason acquisition would be a 19-year-old defenseman.
As it turns out, a betting man would have collected a sizeable sum for such a prediction. Zach Werenski not only stepped right into the Blue Jackets lineup, but he grabbed hold of the No. 1 power play quarterbacking duties and solidified himself as a top-pairing defenseman within the first month of his NHL career.
The Blue Jackets’ defense was transformed by Werenski’s arrival, the emergence of Seth Jones as a No. 1 defenseman in his own right, the proper deployment of veterans Jack Johnson and David Savard and the strong depth provided by Ryan Murray, rookie Markus Nutivaara and several others.
Werenski, though, had the biggest impact of them all.
When Tortorella said he wanted the Blue Jackets to embody his “safe is death” mantra, a critical component to that style of play is a mobile and aggressive defense. Tortorella gave the Blue Jackets’ defensemen the green light to jump up in the play, create a second wave of offense and generate as many odd-numbered situations as possible.
Werenski didn’t just fit in, he excelled; the Grosse Point Woods, Mich. native scored 11 goals and totaled 47 points – both Blue Jackets rookie records – and authored one of, if not the best, rookie seasons in franchise history. You could make an argument that he was their most important player, although Sergei Bobrovsky would have something to say about that.
Competition: Auston Matthews (Toronto), Patrik Laine (Winnipeg)
Prediction: Matthews wins Calder Trophy
