Not too long ago, The Hockey News decided to name the top 50 players in each franchise’s history.
Truth be told, there’s only two possible choices for the Columbus Blue Jackets – one best skater and one best goaltender. Rick Nash, of course, is the skater. In the Columbus sweater, he tallied 289 goals, 258 assists and 547 points – numbers that are 164, 54 and 230 beyond his closest competitors, respectively.
Then there’s the goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky. He’s backstopped two of the three Blue Jackets playoff teams, won two Vezina Trophies and has 146 wins to his credit, with the latter total 50 wins past his closest competitor.
The Hockey News went with Nash.
Top 5 Columbus players of all-time: 1. Nash, 2. Bobrovsky, 3. Vyborny, 4. Foligno, 5. Tyutin. Full top-50 list in THN collector's issue.
— Brian Costello (@bcostellothn) October 21, 2017
In talking with some friends recently, they seemed to think the answer has to be Bobrovsky. My fellow 1OB writer, Sam Blazer, agreed in a piece this summer.
I’m not going to dwell on this – both were great in different ways, and I’d probably take Bob if you needed a final answer because of the playoff appearances and NHL league awards – but what might be most interesting about the THN list is what happens after the top two.
Third is David Vyborny, the Czech playmaker who is second to Nash in career assists and points in union blue. Fourth is Nick Foligno, the current captain who has been a mainstay of the playoff teams along with Bobrovsky. Fifth is Fedor Tyutin, the epitome of a rock-solid defenseman during his tenure in Columbus.
But what’s missing from the list, as much as those guys were damn good players, is star power.
For a few reasons, stardom has eluded this franchise for much of its existence. First, it was an expansion team, so by default it had very little to begin with. Then, the team was often bad but never bad enough to fall into a Sidney Crosby or an Alex Ovechkin, and we all know the franchise’s history with first-round picks. Just as well-known is the fact Columbus hasn’t often been a marquee spot for free agents to land in the club’s tenure.
This is unfortunate in a league where stardom can be the currency of excitement, relevance and success. Look at what Crosby (and Evgeni Malkin) did for Pittsburgh and Ovechkin for Washington, both on the ice and in terms of franchise visibility. Similarly, Edmonton’s franchise has been energized by Connor McDavid, and Auston Matthews appears to be part of a wave of youngsters doing the same in Toronto.
There hasn’t been a lack of trying from the front office in this regard. In the early years, a star wasn’t going to come in any way but through the draft, but picks like Leclaire, Zherdev and Picard just didn’t pan out.
Eventually, as the Blue Jackets built a team capable of its first playoff run, it started fishing for ways to put more elite talent around Nash. That led to the deal that sent Jakub Voracek to Pittsburgh for Jeff Carter, one of those deals that was high upside on paper but never came close to working out in reality.
The Jackets again rolled the dice two seasons after a playoff appearance a few years ago, sending a bevy of players to Chicago in exchange for what was thought to be a burgeoning superstar in Brandon Saad. He proved to be one of the most consistent five-on-five players in the game but not a jaw-dropper who made you want to shell out for tickets at Nationwide Arena.
Finally, Columbus made another move for a star this offseason, sending Saad back to Chicago for Artemi Panarin. The plan was adding a game-breaking scoring force – Panarin had at least 30 goals and 70 points in each of his two seasons in Chicago – to high-level scorer Cam Atkinson and potential stars in their own right Zach Werenski and Seth Jones in order to have a team that could compete on not just depth of talent but breadth.
Twelve games later, Panarin has one goal in a union blue sweater, and while it was a doozy, that’s not quite the kind of production many had hoped for.
Of course I’m not saying the young Russian, who has nine assists already, is a bust; far from it. His underlying stats show a player who has been creating offense if not finishing it, he’s rang the post enough times to show he’s been *this close* to adding a few more scores, and the eye test has shown a player whose skills are tantalizing and obvious. He can do things with the puck few can, and does them on a regular basis. There are some misses he'd want back, but one of the biggest issues, to my eye, hasn’t been his play but the comfort level of the teammates around him, who still seem to be figuring out how to work best with such a skilled and puck-dominant player.
Perhaps the shootout goal he buried Monday night will open the floodgates – the relief after the tally from the Russian seemed palpable – and Panarin will reach the stats on the back of his hockey card to this point in his career. For a Jackets team that’s already 8-4 without the Breadman scoring in droves, adding his explosiveness to the scoresheet could solidify Columbus as a bona fide "it" team in the league.
But if you're a Jackets fan, perhaps the mind starts wandering a bit. The franchise's seemingly endless star search this summer led them to Panarin, and those haven't been fruitful searches for much of the team's history.
