The Columbus Blue Jackets were one of those teams people wanted to watch this season because of their exciting and talented roster. However, the Blue Jackets have been making headlines for the wrong reasons. From the Mike Babcock signing and firing to the benchings of Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine, which led to Laine being scratched.
There is a lot of noise surrounding the Blue Jackets. They have not truly recovered from the Mike Babcock fiasco this offseason. And while new head coach Pascal Vincent has been trying to set the tone by holding players accountable, he seems to be losing the room.
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And while it is on the players like Laine and Gaudreau to be better, the tactics are just not working. It seems to be falling on deaf ears. Especially for the top players like Laine and Gaudreau, who the Blue Jackets are paying a lot of money to for their goal-scoring ability.
Neither one has really produced for the Blue Jackets since arriving in Columbus. Laine has recorded 60 goals in 165 games in his time with the Blue Jackets. And has yet to crack the 30-goal plateau. He did that three times with the Winnipeg Jets setting a career high in goals with 44 in the 2017-18 season.
However, the Blue Jackets have never used Laine properly. The team has tried him on the wing and then tried to get him going at center. Patrik Laine was drafted by Winnipeg to be a scoring winger. Yes, he is one-dimensional, but most goal-scorers are. But something is not clicking for him in Columbus.
He was scratched last Sunday before the game against Philadelphia, where he called it “the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me.” Laine also thought he was blindsided by the scratching.
There is definitely an issue there, as the coach thought it was best for him to watch and learn instead of being on the ice. With most skilled players who are in a slump, they need confidence. The one way to get that confidence back is to play through things as we are seeing with Jonathan Huberdeau in Calgary.
And speaking of Huberdeau, he is tied to Johnny Gaudreau. Since leaving Calgary, Gaudreau has not been the same player. In his final season in Calgary, Gaudreau recorded 115 points (40 goals and 75 assists). In 99 games total with the Jackets, he has 23 goals. Not good enough for a player who is making $9.75 million a season.
Again maybe Gaudreau is not the player we think he is. Or did he really want to go to Philadelphia so badly, that he just settled for Columbus and it has not worked out?
Like Huberdeau, he is missing other playmakers like Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, or Aleksander Barkov. Columbus just does not have those players. And maybe Patrik Laine is missing a player like Mark Scheifele.
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But something is not working in Columbus for these players. Is it the noise? The Flames needed a player to step up to block the noise. Does Columbus have that? Well, that was supposed to be Boone Jenner. but we know what happened with the statements released by Jenner and the organization when it came to Babcock.
So this team is in disarray. Top to bottom because something is not working. Are the Blue Jackets really ready to be that team again or are they just a team?
As Ray Ferraro of the Ray and Dregs Podcast said the other day, “They’re a team with no identity and they’re just, they’re just a franchise and that place should be better than it is.”
Whatever the case, the Columbus Blue Jackets need to find themselves before it is too late and players look to get out of there. But as we know it will be tough to make those trades. So it is on guys like Laine and Gaudreau to turn it around themselves.
Both players have the potential, but do they have what it takes as they are more followers than leaders? Again time will tell, but it is a mess in Columbus right now.