The Columbus Blue Jackets have quickly turned into the hottest team in the National Hockey League since Halloween.
The Jackets leave me at a personal crossroads. First, they play in the state capital of Ohio, a town more known for their love of an overrated collegiate program, filled with countless delusional fans. Second, I wanted the NHL to come here, instead of saddling us with yet another minor league club. In 15 seasons the Blue Jackets have two playoff appearances (2009 and 2014), and just two playoff game wins, both against the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2014. Captain Nick Foligno’s overtime goal in Game Four of that series may still be the loudest I have ever heard a NHL crowd after a goal.
Does anyone else see the irony of the Cleveland Browns returning to the NFL in 1999, and have just one playoff appearance; while the Blue Jackets have a meager two in one fewer campaign?
The Blue Jackets are the hottest team in the NHL at the time of this entry. Since the start of the month Columbus is 7-1-2, with their only regulation loss coming 5-2 to Boston back on 10 November. In their recent success Columbus put eight goals up on my St. Louis Blues two nights after the loss to the Bruins. It was the second time five games the Blue Jackets put up at least eight goals.
The other was the NHL’s first 10-goal performance since the Pittsburgh Penguins laid a 10-3 beating on the Philadelphia Flyers in the opening round of the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Blue Jackets set a franchise mark for goals and margin of victory in a 10-0 shutout of the Montreal Canadiens back on 4 November. The Jackets finished with 40 shots for the game...a 25% average!
By the by, Montreal had yet to lose in regulation to that point...the last team in the league to do so. Montreal still holds the league’s best record with 30 points through 20 games.
Columbus has continued their success, vaulting into the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, and is mathematically tied with Ottawa for a the top three guaranteed playoff positions in the Atlantic Division. I know, I know...no team has reached the quarter-pole in the race to April. In fact, going into tonight’s action, Columbus is tied with the Arizona Coyotes for the fewest games played on their schedule (17).
Their +16 goal differential is third-best in the entire league, and have given up the second-fewest goals in the league (40, five more than the Minnesota Wild).
The Blue Jackets made the biggest splash of the off-season, trading forward Ryan Johansen to Nashville, for 2013 fourth-overall selection, defenseman Seth Jones. Jones joined a defensive core that averages 25 years of age, and brought a new level of toughness largely absent from the blue line, with the exception being Dalton Prout.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are winning at the moment, and are in perfect shape to keep their momentum rolling through the season, and in years to come. The Blue Jackets paired up with the Cleveland (née Lake Erie) Monsters of the American Hockey League as their primary affiliate last season. Since Cleveland’s membership in the AHL with the Barons in 2001, the affiliations had been with the San Jose Sharks (2001-2006) and Colorado Avalanche (2006-2015), so imagine the joy of both franchises to be able to exchange players with a mere bus ride down I-71.
The Monsters were the first team to get the ball rolling for the Cleveland sports curse to end, winning the 2016 Calder Cup Championship in one of the most dominating playoff performances at any level of professional hockey. The Monsters swept through the first round of the playoffs, won their conference semifinal in six games, before finally sweeping their way through the final two rounds to hoisting the Calder Cup for Northeast Ohio for the first time since 1964...the same season the Browns won the city’s last professional championship in a “Big Four” league before the NBA’s Cavaliers back in June. The Monsters won or led each of their four playoff series by 3-games-to-none margins...a feat no team had ever achieved in the AHL’s 80-year history.
There has not been a season where an NHL team won the Stanley Cup and their primary affiliate won the Calder Cup since 1995 with the New Jersey Devils and Albany River Rats. Let’s be perfectly clear...the Blue Jackets are not winning the 2017 Stanley Cup Championship. Columbus is currently trailing the New York Rangers, defending-champion Pittsburgh, and the Washington Capitals in the standings. Let that marinate for a moment...Henrik Lundqvist, Sidney Crosby, and Alex Ovechkin. The biggest dog you have in the fight right now is Foligno, and you’re thinking Purdue can hang with Alabama when hardware is involved?!
However, if the Blue Jackets wanted to crash the party in the spring, who needs to kick in a door when they have a freaking cannon at their disposal?!
-JC24
NOTE: I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving weekend. That being said, any retailer opening on Thanksgiving in advance of Black Friday should be ashamed of themselves, and anyone going shopping Thanksgiving night deserves to be trampled. I will be partaking in my usual tradition of laughing at people standing outside waiting for stores to open, as I'm driving home from festivities with my mother.