By: Meaghan Joyce
When you heard Columbus Blue Jackets all that really came to mind was Rick Nash or the only team in the league that's never been in the playoffs. But this past season changed both of those factors to those outside of the Blue Jackets circle of fans.
Last season a lot of moves were made to try and help ensure that the club could make it to the playoffs for the first time ever in franchise history. Kristian Huselius and Mike Commodore were both brought in via the free agent market; while R.J. Umberger, Fedor Tyutin and Raffi Torres were all acquired through various trades. A good chunk of our regulars were coming back including Pascal Leclaire who finally seemed healthy enough to carry this team a full season. The first month was shaky with only pulling out four wins, lossing Center Derick Brassard for the season with a shoulder injury suffered in the first game of the season in Dallas from a fight with James Neal and the second month started with Leclaire playing sub par and eventually being put on IR with an ankle injury.
Steve Mason, welcome to the big show. Mason came in to win five games that month, exceeded everyone's expectations about what he could do, had an outstanding GAA AND shut out the best team on home ice in the Washington Capitals 1-0 on November 29th. His second month was just as stellar and brought home for the second month in a row Rookie of The Month to Columbus. In seasons past at this point we'd be done. Maybe win a few here and there but nothing major enough for people to keep interest. But we had Mason and we kept winning. The injury and cold bug hit us again after the All-Star Break, as it always tends to do, but the babies from Syracuse stepped up big time for us, especially LaCosta while Mason was on IR for a short while with mono. A few short weeks later brought the trade deadline and swaped French-Canadian players, our Pascal Leclaire for Ottawa's Antoine Vermette.
Could this be for real? Were we actually winning without all our big guns in the lineup? Could we possibly make a playoff run for the first time ever? Should we rest our hopes for a playoff berth on a rookie goaltender? The answer to all these questions? A big fat, YES!
We ended up finishing the regular season fourth in the Central Division and seventh in the Western Conference with 92 points; adding 12 points from the previous season, which at that point, had been our highest point total as a team. Playoff seeding matched us up against the number two team, Detroit Red Wings; a team we had played semi-well during the regular season, but as we all know regular season Wings and playoff Wings, were two completely different beasts. Though everyone prayed for an upset or at least five games, we were swept out in four games; though who could have expected much more from a team where only a handful of guys had ever played a playoff game in their careers before? But the biggest reward out of all of this was that finally people were starting to notice Columbus and taking them seriously; even if most of it was because of our rookie goaltender, but who cares? We'll take it!
Come draft time we were finally not in the Top 10 to pick, which yes it's nice to have a high pick like that, but seeing as we finally made a playoff appearance we'll take the 21st pick willingly. One of our most needed assets was defense going into this draft. Yes we have a lot of defense but we have just that many more forwards, plus it never hurts to have too many defensemen in your system. We hit the jackpot in snatching up John Moore who played with the Chicago Steel in the USHL. Moore had commited to play on the college level but after signing a three-year entry level contract with the Jackets, is expected to play with the OHL's Kitchener Rangers this season.
Not too much happend for us free agent wise this off season. We let a few players go (Manny Malhotra to Carolina, Jason Williams to Detroit and Ole-Kristian Tollefsen to Philadelphia) but acquired free agents Mathieu Garon from Pittsburgh and Samuel Pahlsson from Chicago.
Expectations? Not too sure what the league is expecting from us, but us, the fans and the team itself, are expecting a lot coming out of last season. Hopefully Mason doesn't get thrown into that sophomore slump category and comes out just as strong, if not stronger, than he did last season. That Brassard has a full healthy, productive season and that Jakub Voracek has a solid sophomore season and Nikita Filatov busts out of the gates, guns blazing and has a stellar rookie season performance. As long as our injury/cold bug doesn't visit that often this team can do well, as long as we work on our power play (no matter how well you play, being 30th in the league on the power play doesn't help advance you, aside from down in the standings).
Predictions? In my honest opinion I believe we can finish fairly well this season. I don't believe that last seasons run and our record of 92 points was a fluke by any stretch of the imagination. In a perfect world I would love for us to finish first in the Central and in the top four in the West, but we all know that won't happen...not yet anyway. But for this season I think we're more than capable of finishing third in the Central and maybe fifth or sixth in the West. As for how far we'll go when/if we make the playoffs, it's hard to say because of all the moves teams in the Western Conference have made, but I believe we'll at least be able to get past round one of play and depending on who we play, possibly even round two.
Needless to say, it's going to be an exciting season, no matter the outcome, for Jackets fans. Sit back and enjoy the ride, it's gonna be a fun one!
CARRY THE FLAG!
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