Trying to find a positive in the early goings of this season is akin to putting lipstick on a pig.
Such is life for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who, all things considered, showed well for themselves in a 4-3 OT loss against the New York Islanders on Saturday night.
That loss comes just days after the club announced that they have lost Zach Werenski to a season-ending shoulder injury. In the same game in which Werenski was hurt, Nick Blankenberg broke his ankle and will be out 6-8 weeks. Erik Gudbranson left the same game and is considered day-to-day. Adam Boqvist is on LTIR with a broken bone in his foot and will likely miss another month.
That's four regulars in a defensive lineup that was already amongst the worst in the NHL. The Blue Jackets have used 11 (!) defensemen so far through just 14 games this season.
On Saturday night, Jake Christiansen made his season debut and Marcus Bjork made his NHL debut. Gavin Bayreuther played his second game of the season. Top prospect David Jiricek, who turns 19 later this month, has played in two games with Columbus, and it's safe to say he needs more seasoning in the AHL.
Andrew Peeke, Vladislav Gavrikov, and Jake Bean are the only regulars who started the season on the NHL roster that remain intact.
It can be difficult to find a positive in all of this, but I'll offer two ways in which this can be a positive development.
The first is that this glut of injuries will almost certainly result in more losses. I don't need to rehash why losing this year may be good but I've certainly not changed my mind on my opinion about embracing the tank in the week since this article was posted.
The second is less controversial. The Blue Jackets can use this opportunity to see what they have in different players. Aside from Jiricek, who I believe should be playing top-pairing minutes in the AHL, there's basically no downside to seeing the remaining healthy defensemen play in various roles. Bean on PP1? Sure, why the hell not. Christiansen getting regular minutes? Sounds like a plan to me. Bjork getting a trial by fire in his first pro season in North America? Sold. Can Gavrikov and Peeke find chemistry and bring the consistent shutdown defending required to have confidence in that pairing when the stakes are higher? Can anyone rise up and show that, when a healthy Werenski returns to the lineup, they deserve the first shot with him?
There are really only a few scenarios for how this all plays out. Either the team continues to languish, and none of the replacement defensemen are able to change the club's fortunes. That is not only the expected outcome but, as I will reiterate, the preferred. Perhaps, instead, they outkick their proverbial coverage. That is good for several reasons, namely that they increase their theoretical trade value and give the coaching staff a surplus of difficult decisions to make when the roster is healthy.
The Blue Jackets defense corps that skated in the 4-3 loss on Saturday evening was quite possibly the lowest cap hit the club has ever iced in the salary cap era. Gavrikov ($2.8M) and Bean ($2.3M) were the only defensemen with a cap hit over $1M in 2022-23. Their six skaters combined have an estimated $8.5M cap hit, which is less than Werenski makes by himself.
The team is tied for last in the NHL in points. Their best defenseman is out for the remaining 68 games of this god-forsaken season. It's been said that, when teams are sinking, opposing teams throw anvils, not life rafts. Let's see if they sink or swim.
