The Columbus Blue Jackets are undefeated in games so far this work week.
All jokes aside, their lack of games has given the club an opportunity to regroup and reset, and given me time to keep tabs on some other teams around the NHL. It's an interesting practice, watching other teams compete. What is it that makes the good teams tick? What plagues bad teams?
One thing I keep coming back to is that the NHL is, as a whole, continually trending toward younger players. This is mostly good. Younger players have more energy, are more explosive, and make more mistakes, all things equal, than their veteran peers. It's not a coincidence that scoring and expected goals are up in the NHL year-over-year.
But with the youth movement comes a shifting paradigm in how teams manage these players. In a bygone era, young, talented players would be square-peg/round-holed into checking roles, proving they can defend at the NHL level before being given a chance to move up in the lineup. As an extreme example, take someone like Brad Marchand. He's a bonafide MVP-caliber player, but he came into the league as a checker before proving he actually has a bit of offensive upside.
This brings us to Columbus, the perennially young and up-and-coming team. Heading into this season, we talked about how there were plenty of question marks on the roster that needed to be addressed. A sampling: Who is the #1C? Who is Zach Werenski's running mate on the top pair? Is Kent Johnson a winger or a center, and where should he play in the lineup? Can Jack Roslovic fill in at 2C, or even 1C, if Boone Jenner falters at 1C? Wait, is Jenner really a 1C? Can Adam Boqvist or Jake Bean take a step? Can Elvis Merzlikins and/or Joonas Korpisalo provide consistent and quality goaltending?
Put simply, what are the roles are expectations for players on this team? Take the Blue Jackets' upcoming opponent, the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, as a case study.
This team has a clear delineation of roles. The top players are there to provide offense. The bottom six is there to keep it even and play shutdown hockey. Their top-two defensive pairs are there to jump in the play as often as possible, and their bottom pair is more shutdown in nature. It's a veteran team, and expectations are clear. Everybody is rowing the boat in the same direction.
On the continuum of rigidity to complete anarchy, I think it's a good thing for a team that's clearly in a developmental mode to not pigeonhole players into certain roles. Let them find out where they fit. Tinker. But at the same time, it's easy to continually punt the Blue Jackets' theoretical success into the future - some of us have been doing that for years. They've spent serious draft capital on fixing their blue line. They continue to draft well at forward. Any year now, they'll put it together. But it's a slippery slope to think like that. At 3-7-0, playoff chances are already the lowest in the NHL. So, what constitutes a successful season?
To me, it's simple. Find out who belongs, and at what role. That means everyone, from the 4th line wingers to the top line, from behind the bench to the coaching staff and management.
With 72 games to go, here are the questions I most want answered:
- Is the goalie of the future on the roster?
- Where do players like Yegor Chinakhov, Kent Johnson, and Cole Sillinger fit into an ideal NHL lineup?
- On a crowded and underachieving blue line, who should be a fixture in the long run?
- Are players like Jack Roslovic, Patrik Laine, and Jakub Voracek simply novelty pieces that have undeniable talent but leave you wanting more?
- Is there anyone that deserves to play with Johnny Gaudreau?
- Is this the correct coaching staff to lead the team?
Barring something extraordinary, the Blue Jackets won't make the playoffs this year. It's sad to come to that conclusion in early November, but the math just isn't on their side. But that doesn't mean that the season should be lost to the archives. Find out what players fit in which roles, and purge the excess. There is still plenty of time to accomplish at least that.
