When Columbus Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner went to the dressing room with an injury against the St. Louis Blues, it was a devastating blow to the club.
Jenner is perhaps the most important player on the team given his ability to play all situations. He's the team's number-one center, leading goal scorer, best faceoff player, and a staple on the first power play and penalty-killing unit. That's a lot to replace, and it's safe to say that the club almost certainly won't be able to fill that void over the next six weeks.
I was recently critical of the organization's lack of direction, namely that young players weren't having a chance to blossom in what is clearly another lost season. With the injury to Jenner (and to a lesser extent to Jack Roslovic, who is still out of the lineup), the team will have to rely on its young core.
That was partially true in the first game since Jenner's injury. Adam Fantilli, who is the most obvious beneficiary of the injury, played just 13:54 in Sunday's 5-2 loss to the Florida Panthers while centering Kent Johnson and Emil Bemstrom. Another benefactor, Cole Sillinger, centered Sean Kuraly and Alexandre Texier while skating 15:41. Dimitri Voronkov played in between Kirill Marchenko and Yegor Chinakhov, which has been arguably the club's most impactful line for the past six games. Despite their success, Voronkov played the fewest minutes of any Blue Jackets forward, just 12:45. Then there was Justin Danforth, who's played primarily wing in his time in the NHL, who led all forwards in ice time with 17:26 (note: the increase was mostly due to penalty kill) while centering Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine.
A few items jump out right away. For one, it's notable that Kuraly, arguably their second-best faceoff man behind Jenner, was moved to the wing in favor of Sillinger. That trend will be worth monitoring in the coming games. Secondly, it remains surprising that the coaching staff, in all of its lineup iterations, has avoided putting Fantilli alongside Gaudreau. Now, more than ever, one could argue that Fantilli is the club's top center and should be playing with the best players. That would allow the coaching staff to keep intact the "Russian Line" and flip Danforth, who is a nice player but not a 1C in any serious lineup, to play lower in the lineup.
It's also worth mentioning that players who have played limited center, like Laine and Texier, are now fully moved to the wing. With the absence of Jenner and Roslovic, and the move of Kuraly to the wing, the coaching staff is all but saying that Laine/Texier, and to a lesser extent Johnson, are at best the eighth option on a bad team to play center.
With over half a season to go, the organization must allow its young players to make strides. The absence of Jenner, though devastating in the short-run, could be exactly the nudge the organization needs to allow its young players a chance to play meaningful minutes and in difficult roles. While the penalty minutes in the Panthers game skewed the minutes in favor of someone like Danforth as opposed to Voronkov. But in a typical game, it would be nice to see players who appear to be a large part of the club's future, like Fantilli, Voronkov, and Sillinger, playing a key role.
