By Anthony Pucik
Things appeared to be turning around for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Two years ago, the expansion franchise, now in its 16th season, made its first playoff appearance since 2008, and with a young core and a solid goaltender in Sergei Bobrovsky, the Blue Jackets looked to be turning the corner and becoming a serious playoff threat in the Eastern Conference. This season, however, the Blue Jackets are back in the cellar and bordering on being the worst team in the NHL. The team has tried to right the ship by firing head coach Todd Richards and making a mid-season trade, but so far these moves have not allowed Columbus to climb out of the hole it dug for itself early in the season. Suddenly, the surging Blue Jackets have fallen off the map.
The Jackets took a step back after their playoff season in 2013-14, missing the postseason by ten points, and upper management realized a shakeup needed to occur in order to keep Columbus competitive in the Metropolitan Division. In an aggressive move, they went out and acquired Brandon Saad from the Chicago Blackhawks in one of the biggest blockbuster trades of the summer. In return, Chicago received Artem Anisimov, Marko Dano, Jeremy Morin, Corey Tropp and a fourth-round draft pick this upcoming year.
Saad, a 23-year-old Stanley Cup winner who had 23 goals and 52 points in his third full season with Chicago, brought another top six forward to an already talented group of Ryan Johansen, Nick Foligno, Booen Jenner and Brandon Dubisnky, which made many believe the Blue Jackets would have one of the best offenses in the East, if not the league. Saad is pulling his weight this season, but that same cannot be said for the rest of his team. Foligno is having a down year after a 31-goal 2014-15 campaign, and the team is not getting much secondary scoring.
Injuries have also been a big issue this season, with Bobrovsky being placed on injured reserve on multiple occasions throughout the season. When he has been available, he hasn’t been the Vezina candidate of year’s past, going 11-13-1, but that is also a product of a below average Columbus defense, which was flagged as a problem before the season even started. To combat this, the Jackets traded Johansen, who wasn’t getting along with Tortorella, to the Predators in exchange for young defenseman Seth Jones to try and shore up the blue line. While Jones has helped, the lack of depth behind Bobrovsky has left Columbus short-handed between the pipes and at a disadvantage in nearly every game they play.
The problem is evident: the Blue Jackets lack depth, and one or two players (Saad) cannot do it all. Once a depthless team gets injuries as Columbus has had, they will surely struggle. So yes, the Blue Jackets acquired a great goal scorer in Brandon Saad, but at what cost? They traded significant supporting players that they are clearly missing this season and failed to address their glaring issues on defense. So before you take the team that is the “sexy pick” in the offseason because of the huge trade it made, make sure you look past the trade and see what the rest of the team has to offer. If people did that with Columbus, this season would not be as much of a surprise.
