Two days after the Columbus Blue Jackets season ended, Nick Foligno stood in front of the media and answered every question.
Watching the winger speak, you could tell it wasn’t easy to talk about a season that had just been extinguished.
“It’s hard to reflect right now because the wounds are still there that you haven’t finished the playoffs the way you wanted,” Foligno said. “Especially for how well we thought we played, it still stings, but you start to reflect a little bit here and I’m really proud of what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished.
“What’s nice is we have accomplished so much, but the job is still very far from being done. We have a long way to go, and that excited me. There’s work to be put in. Guys realize we fell short of our goal, which is the Stanley Cup.”
If Foligno sounded like a man with perspective, a man driven to succeed – a captain – that’s because he is.
But a few months ago, there was a question of whether Foligno would continue in that role.
When head coach John Tortorella took over early in the 2015-16 season, it was just seven games into Foligno’s tenure as full-time captain of the team. And with the Jackets in the throes of a lost season, the new head man wondered if Foligno had what it took to handle the job.
Those suspicions didn’t abate much during at the end of a season in which Columbus fell to 27th in the NHL in points. It was a difficult year personally for Foligno, too, as the winger went from 31 goals and 73 points in 2014-15 to just 12 goals and 37 points in his initial year as captain.
"I don't think you can do it,” Tortorella told Foligno after the season according to ESPN.com.
The Tortorella who spoke those words wasn’t in Columbus when Foligno had earned the job. Acquired in the summer of 2012 from Ottawa in a straight swap – Foligno went to Columbus, defenseman Marc Methot to the Senators in a trade that has helped each team – the winger didn’t always look like he’d be the face of the franchise.
In the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign, his first in union blue, Foligno had a 6-13-19 line in 45 games. One year later, another workmanlike showing with 18 goals and 39 points in 70 games for a Columbus team that made the playoffs – all while dealing with the worry of whether his newborn daughter would survive an early health scare.
The following year was a breakout. Though Columbus battled a rash of injuries and missed the playoffs, Foligno posted career highs in every major statistical category. Finally healthy, the team rallied at the end of the season, convincing many a return to the postseason would be in the cards. Foligno not only scored big goals, he increasingly became the person everyone went to when looking for the pulse of the locker room.
As reported by ESPN, at the end of that season, players indicated a captain had emerged after years of searching. In May of 2015, Foligno became the sixth full-time captain in franchise history.
“Over the past three seasons, Nick Foligno has distinguished himself on the ice, in the dressing room and in our community,” general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said at the time.
How quickly things could change in a year’s time. By the end of the next season, the team had struggled, his leadership has been challenged, and Foligno had to stand on the ice at the end of the season and tell fans things would be better moving forward.
Of course, he was right. The son of an NHL veteran and the brother of another, Foligno grew into the role throughout the season. Always a man of humor and personality in public, Foligno became more comfortable in the varied roles required of a captain. On the ice, the improvement followed, with 26 goals and 25 assists on the board.
“He’s improved,” Tortorella said after the season. “It’s between Nick and I, but he’s improved. It killed him that he couldn’t play the last game. We didn’t think it was going to be our last game. He has certainly improved and is on the right road as far as how to go about that part of it. He’s still a guy who is very new at that as far as responsibilities that come with that.”
As Tortorella alluded to, Foligno had to miss the Blue Jackets final game of the season. A blocked shot in Game 3 worsened throughout Game 4, and the captain had to make the ultimate sacrifice for the team when he realized his leg wouldn’t allow him to do his part in Game 5.
It was a dispiriting end, but also perhaps a beginning for a team and a captain with sights on even bigger and better things going forward.
“There’s a lot to reflect on, but I want guys to know as great as this year was, it wasn’t good enough,” Foligno said. “That needs to be a motivating factor for every guy coming into next year is we have a job to do and this is the team to do it with.”
