The Columbus Blue Jackets traveled to Brooklyn on Tuesday night to take on the Islanders for yet another game without goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. The Blue Jackets star netminder has had nothing short of a rollercoaster of a season, and has had to endure a decent amount of criticism on whether or not he should be the man the club should go forward with. With Curtis McElhinney getting injured in the last win, on January 2nd, the team has gone on a stretch of four straight, very hard to watch at times, losses that have turned all of the doubters into lovesick fanatics.
A Love Letter to Sergei Bobrovsky
The Blue Jackets started the season 0-8-0, the worst start in the NHL’s modern era, and Bobrovsky played a big role in this historically bad record. With the Russian netminder starting off the season 0-6-0, and allowing a whopping 25 goals in the process, he was able to draw a lot of critics out of the woodwork. The man looked like he was at the end of his wits, and seemingly had no confidence or faith in his abilities to keep opponents from putting the biscuit in the basket. Game after game seemed to pile on one another as even more criticism came, eventually leading to the exit of head coach Todd Richards. In came controversial coach, and never scared to do something crazy, John Tortorella.
Bobrovsky started to look better and better, game after game, with the hiring of Tortorella, and most thought of it as a second coming of some kind of goaltending god, especially with how the season was going. October 24th rolled around, and Bobrovsky, with the faith of John Tortorella, was the man between the pipes of the club when it got its first win to end the historic run. From that point on, Bobrovsky was able to channel his inner Vezina-level of play, and was able to win 10 of his next 14 starts, which included a shutout against the Nashville Predators, and two solid wins over division rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. But yet the skepticism was still there from some of the Columbus fanbase.
Then it happened; the infamous groin injury that has plagued him over the last few seasons reared its ugly head once again. A few games, some good and some quite bad, rolled by with backup McElhinney sitting in for the Russian. And, as soon as news came that “Goalie Bob” was within a day or two of returning to the team full-time, the worst thing possible for the team happened: He reaggravated an already disappointing injury.
So, Blue Jackets fans took a collective deep breath and decided to get fully behind McElhinney, but it wasn’t to be. In the win that, in truth, not many expected to happen over the league’s best team, the Washington Capitals, McElhinney seemingly lost his balance as he went across the crease, which turned out to be another goalie going to the injured reserve to pad an already depressing amount of man games lost for the Blue Jackets.
In most circumstances, with a starter and backup on the IR, a fan base would throw in the towel and admit that things were about to get bumpy, this wasn’t the case with the Blue Jackets followers. Across the forums, the fans of the club expressed a sense of nervous excitement to see what the club’s two promising young guns, Anton Forsberg and Joonas Korpisalo, had to offer for the future of the Blue Jackets. The first few games passed and both Forsberg and Korpisalo were showing some promise, but promise doesn’t pay the bills and the Blue Jackets continued to drop result after result to teams of similar talent level.
As the season continues to move on without him, the small remaining pockets of Bobrovsky doubters seem to grow thinner and thinner. And, just the other day, fans that have made a reputation off of thinking he was “overrated” or “not the man to move forward with” have proclaimed him a blessing that needs to be brought to the city to rescue them. There seems to be another light at the end of the tunnel, as Bobrovsky was able to skate on Monday, filling Columbus fans with hope yet again, whether that turns out to be a false hope is yet to be determined though. But, as the team travels to Toronto tomorrow to play yet another winnable game against the Leafs, one can hope that the result will mirror the hope in the hearts of the fans, and that Bobrovsky will be back soon enough.
And, if one single statement can speak for all Columbus Blue Jackets fans, it would be this: Come back to us, Bob!
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