The 23 players who will begin the season as Columbus Blue Jackets have been confirmed.
And after a training camp of injuries and intrigue, the roster is about what we expected it would be, but how the team got there was a bit of a roller coaster.
Of course, the big hill came at the end, not the beginning, with this one. The news that broke late last night that holdout forward Josh Anderson had agreed to a three-year deal with the club fortified a squad that at times looked as though it was going to see not just an edit but a major overhaul from the one that won a franchise-record 50 games a season ago.
We already knew that replacing the production of departed forwards Brandon Saad, Sam Gagner, Scott Hartnell and William Karlsson was going to be a major plot point of camp. But with Brandon Dubinsky and Boone Jenner on the shelf for much of the preseason and Anderson holding out, suddenly there were real questions about the Blue Jackets' scoring depth.
Those have been largely cleared up the past few days. Dubinsky's successful return to the ice Saturday fortified the team down the middle, while the signing of Anderson returns 17 goals to the lineup not to mention his physical presence and impressive speed.
Anderson likely won't play the first game, giving a pretty clear picture of what the team will look like in the opener. The top line will include Artemi Panarin on the left, Alexander Wennberg in the center and Cam Atkinson on the right, and if that doesn't get you excited as a fan, not much will.
Nick Foligno and Dubinsky will center the next two lines, and you have to love the young scoring punch that could be featured in Oliver Bjorkstrand and first-round picks Sonny Milano and Pierre-Luc Dubois. The wingers in each of those cases will be pretty young, but all are goal scoring threats after strong camps (and in Bjorkstrand's case, an impressive end to the 2017 season).
Matt Calvert, Markus Hännikäinen and Zac Dalpe complete the wing depth, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Calvert play on a line with Dubinsky and Dubois that scored a goal in the final preseason game vs. Pittsburgh and will provide a pretty strong compete level if grouped together again.
If that's how it goes, Lukas Sedlak would center the fourth line with Hännikäinen and Dalpe – an OSU product who nabbed the final spot over Michigan alum Tyler Motte – in a grouping that could be intriguing. Dalpe is a veteran while Sedlak had a rock-solid 2016-17 debut season and Hännikäinen is thought to be ready for NHL duty after a solid campaign at Cleveland a season ago.
The choice of Dalpe over Motte was the last bit of intrigue left, but given the former's strong camp and the fact the latter didn't need to clear waivers, perhaps it shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Motte can be back down from Cleveland at a moment's notice if he gets off to a hot start.
There are questions there – you want to see the fourth line in action, and so much youth on the wings could really test that "safe is death" mantra – but all in all, things have rounded into shape for the opener. That's even without Anderson and Jenner (who begins the year on the injured list along with Jordan Schroeder and Sam Vigneault), and the depth available should be fine if more injuries crop up along the way. It was certainly strong enough that such intriguing offensive options as Vitaly Abramov and Calvin Thurkauf didn't make it to the end of camp.
Defensively, there's not much of a surprise, unless you count having eight defensemen as one. This seems to be what the organization wanted, though, and all eight are NHL-quality pieces. As has been written, any organization that can reasonably put someone with the talents of Ryan Murray on the so-called third defensive pair has some pretty good blueliners.
As for the goalie situation, it shook out exactly as expected, with Sergei Bobrovsky ready for the opener and Joonas Korpisalo backing him up. Korpisalo will face a mighty test if something happens to Bobrovsky, but we're not prepared to entertain that thought.
For now, just bring on the hockey.
