“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove
This is what faces the Blue Jackets this season. After securing back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in their history, they must find a way to not be satisfied with that. They can’t be content making the playoffs; they need to build on that success and go on a deep run.
Success starts at the top, and if the leaders of the organization are properly motivated it will trickle down throughout the team. Looking at the Blue Jackets, they certainly seem to be properly motivated. In the room it starts with captain Nick Foligno, who is clearly ready to go and not satisfied just making the playoffs.
It’s one thing for Foligno to say what he did. Now, he has to go and back those comments up. Coming off a 33-point season, his lowest production since the 2012-13 lockout year, he's going to be ready to prove he is better than that. Foligno also must fend off some of the younger players who are coming to camp looking to earn jobs: Jonathan Davidsson, Vitali Abramov, and even players like Alex Broadhurst, Markus Hannikainen, and Eric Robinson are going to want to show they have what it takes to not only play in the NHL, but be regular contributors.
This is something John Tortorella stressed in his interview with Aaron Portzline, over at The Athletic. Young players are coming in and putting pressure on some of those veterans. Tortorella talked about this with regard to Brandon Dubinsky; Dubinsky is a player who had a tough year on and off the ice, and has something to prove because if he doesn’t, his NHL career could be over.
With the addition of Riley Nash, the Blue Jackets have some depth at center. That depth is going to create some great competition at camp, and when asked about it, Tortorella had this to say:
"Quite honestly, I think all of our center-ice men should look at that 19-year-old kid (Pierre-Luc Dubois), and, first of all, thank him. We don’t get into the playoffs if he doesn’t play the way he does. But they should also say, “You know what, kid? I’m getting my ice time back.””
Alexander Wennberg was a player who lost ice time to Dubois and will be an intriguing guy to follow at camp. After averaging a career high 18:23 in 2016-17, Wennberg's ice time was down 15 seconds to 18:08 this past season. His ice time was down even further in the playoffs where he averaged 17:23, and most of those extra minutes went to Dubois, who averaged 23:09 in the playoffs.
On defense, each and every player has something to play for.
Seth Jones is already an All-Star, but he doesn’t get the recognition leaguewide that he deserves. One way to get that is to win a major award and after finishing in fourth place last season, a Norris Trophy is well within his reach. Zach Werenski has to be motivated to show that he’s healthy and that last season was not a “sophomore slump.” You have Ryan Murray who is still trying to establish himself as a top four option. Then you have all the young players fighting for spots, Dean Kukan, and Gabriel Carlsson in particular.
With Jack Johnson and Ian Cole gone, there are spots on this defense open for the taking.
Really, every player on the Blue Jackets has something to play for. This should not be a complacent group. You have young players looking to break into the league, veterans trying to get back to their old selves and stars looking to get to even higher heights. With all this coming together, the Blue Jackets should once again find themselves in the middle of another playoff race.
