John Davidson, upon arriving in Columbus to assume the role of Blue Jackets president of hockey operations at the beginning of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, repeated the theme that he uttered while in the same position for the St. Louis Blues, to the despondent, remaining few Blue Jackets fans, that management was going to build the organization “brick by brick.”
Gone were going to be the days of quick fixes, patchwork squads, a dearth of prospects and failed promises. No, the Blue Jackets were going to go the slow, steady path of organizational building, with the end goal of having a team that would not only qualify for playoffs, but have an organization which could compete for the Stanley Cup, hockey’s ultimate prize, and do so in a sustainable manner.
Sometimes, however, fate and destiny get in the way of the best-laid of plans…
Why Did The Blue Jackets Abandon ‘Brick by Brick?’
The initial results seemed to fit Davidson’s mantra: The Blue Jackets started the season similarly to the prior 2011-12 season, with the NHL’s worst record at 5-12-3 which led to the firing of then General Manager Scott Howson.
Davidson, rather quickly, within eight minutes of the announcement of Howson’s firing, brought in new GM Jarmo Kekalainen, who worked previously as Davidson’s director of scouting and development for the Blues, had already forged a reputation as one of the sport’s greatest gurus of mining previously unknown talent and barely lost out for the GM position with the Blues, when Davidson named Doug Armstrong for the role. However, Davidson, a man of his word, asked Kekalainen to be patient, that when the position would come open that he would give him the opportunity. Kekalainen then left Jokerit of the Finnish Elite League (as GM) to assume the position of GM with the Blue Jackets.
It appeared that Davidson found the perfect person to implement his vision of “Brick by Brick.”
The Blue Jackets, in Kekalainen’s first, albeit lockout-shortened, season at the helm caught fire and went 15-5-5 to close the regular season and narrowly missed the Stanley Cup playoffs, only to lose the last tie-breaker, ironically, and in a cruel twist of fate, based on a tie-breaker rule Howson suggested and had approved by the NHL’s Board of Governors. And, in order to position themselves for a playoff run, they traded away a group of promising young players, including Derrick Brassard and John Moore, to grab the oft-injured but still coveted Marian Gaborik from the New York Rangers. It appeared the “Brick by Brick” philosophy was being abandoned but for an understandable reason/pursuit.
During the season that followed, the Blue Jackets made what appeared to be a seismic free agent acquisition in the form of Boston Bruins forward Nathan Horton, who, like Gaborik, was oft-injured although most of his injuries were a few concussions incurred during his career. The Blue Jackets also “rolled the dice” on Horton by signing him already knowing that he would miss the first half of the upcoming season while recovering from shoulder surgery. The former third overall selection in the NHL Entry Draft was a gritty, north-south style of player seemingly perfect for the Blue Jackets “in your face” style of play.
And although Horton struggled in his recovery from surgery and was unable to finish the end of the regular season, the Blue Jackets qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs and won their first-ever Stanley Cup playoff game, giving the top-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins all that they could handle in losing four games to two. It appeared the Blue Jackets had arrived and looked primed to be a rising, sustained power in the NHL. Thus, the bricks of the “Brick by Brick” mantra appeared to have been laid far sooner than expected, and Davidson’s and Kekalainen’s task would be a lot easier than was previously anticipated.
Optimism was sky-high for the Blue Jackets and their fans as the 2014-15 started; however, all optimism was quickly squashed as the Blue Jackets suffered a plethora of injuries to the key building blocks of the organization, both veterans and young, rising stars like Boone Jenner. Sadly, Horton’s run of injuries continued, except this time, the injury he sustained would signal the end of his career. Horton was diagnosed with a degenerative disk condition of the lumbar region and could no longer skate or even get out of bed and, on February 26th, 2015, the Blue Jackets traded Horton to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for David Clarkson.
The rash of injuries allowed the Blue Jackets to claim the ignominious distinction of capturing the NHL’s category of Man Games Lost to Injury, topping the 500 mark, nearly 200 games lost greater than the NHL average. Once again, although this time due to the injury plague, the Blue Jackets had a horrific 6-15-2 start and appeared destined for a top pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft; however, another furious 15-1-1 finish, when nearly all of the injured cogs recovered, gave the Blue Jackets and their fans the belief that, were it not for the slew of injuries, the Blue Jackets would have continued their rise as a NHL power to be reckoned with, that they just had to hope to mitigate the injuries.
However, in reverse, fate and destiny found itself to return to square one, “Brick by Brick”…
This season, after a stellar training camp and pre-season, and with the acquisition via trade of Philadelphia Flyers forward Scott Hartnell (for R.J. Umberger), optimism was at an all-time high. However, the Blue Jackets collapsed out of the gate with a 0-7-0 mark and, in doing so, were pummeled in each of the seven losses. Pundits and their fans were stunned as this seemingly playoff-bound squad had lost their way and the season fell off of the rails halfway through the first month of the regular season.
Also, for the 4th consecutive time, then coach Todd Richards had an awful start to a regular season. With a payroll set right up against the NHL’s salary cap ceiling, the Blue Jackets organization brass had no choice but to fire Richards after the 7th game of the season. Richards was replaced by John Tortorella, long-considered both one of the best coaches in the NHL but also one of the most volcanic, a coach that wears down his players and eventually, and particularly quickly in Vancouver, wears out his welcome.
Tortorella had his work cut out for him as the Blue Jackets, rather than the “beat my chest” team of the pre-season, were now a mentally fragile team. Under the tutelage of Tortorella, the Blue Jackets climbed out of their initial doldrums and started to play a bit better, hovering around the .500 mark under Tortorella but could not climb out of the seven-game hole that was created. In fact, the Blue Jackets slipped to 10 games under .500 and appeared to be careening towards locking up a shot at winning the NHL’s draft lottery and nabbing the prohibitive No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, Auston Matthews, or one of the other prized draft prospects.
But, as is their custom, they began their annual 2nd half surge and are now four games under .500 and, having gone 11-5-4 over their last 20 games played and 8-2-3 over their last 13 games played, thus all but nullifying any chance at Matthews, particularly as several NHL teams are now in free fall. This type of surge has aggravated many of their loyalists as they often, as was the case, last year in a highly-regarded draft, go on a surge and miss out on a chance for a franchise-changing player, often settling for a less-regarded prospect in the 1st round of the NHL Entry Draft.
Case in point: Had they gone 9-7-1 instead of the 15-1-1 finish when any playoff prospects were, at best, a pipe dream, they would have been positioned in the 3rd spot of the lottery, 4th at worst, and would have been positioned to draft, outright, Noah Hanifin, a defenseman that they coveted rather than try to trade up and in so doing, trade away valued prospects and potentially mortgaging the franchise.
At the recently-completed NHL trade deadline, the Blue Jackets were poised to trade two players which were rumored to be in play: Hartnell and defenseman Fedor Tyutin. However, much like the inactivity of the trade deadline, overall – in the minds of many pundits who have covered this event for decades, possibly the most uneventful trade deadline, ever – other NHL squads were recalcitrant to trade for two players whose contracts contained excessive costs, both as to salary per season and to the remaining term left on their contract.
In Hartnell’s case, while a highly-regarded clubhouse leader as well as one of the Blue Jackets leading scorers over that time period, also has $12.5 million remaining on his contract through the 2019-20 season, when he will be 36 years old. One other issue was Hartnell’s NTC, as there are teams for which Hartnell has specified he will not be traded to.
As for Tyutin, although arguably the Blue Jackets most steady defenseman over the past 8 seasons and although he’s played better as of late, his performance has dwindled during the past few seasons and, like Hartnell, Tyutin carries a hefty $4.5 million annual salary through the 2017-18 season.
It’s possible both veterans could have been traded if Kekalainen were open to the Blue Jackets taking on part of both players salary; however, for the salary cap-crunched, smaller-market Blue Jackets, such options are not feasible.
So, as both veteran players remain with the Blue Jackets, they carry on and continue to compete for as many victories as they can, thus diminishing, by the day, any hope of nabbing Matthews or the other coveted lottery picks in the draft.
It’s admirable that players show their professionalism and pride to compete until the 82nd (final) game of the season, even with a near-impossible chance of a playoff spot; however, if the team is in Davidson’s “Brick by Brick” mode, the Blue Jackets, who have the least overall draft picks in the upcoming 2017 NHL Entry Draft, could use both the opportunity and leverage to build up draft picks to continue that pursuit.
No matter the variables involved with injuries and current winning surges, the Blue Jackets, as John Davidson has recently stated, are in the midst of a build and need to continue their ‘Brick by Brick’ path to ensure that they build a sustainable team, one capable on hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup, not merely qualifying occasionally for the playoffs. However, if their winning ways continue, building via lottery picks and a plethora of overall draft picks isn’t going to occur, this off-season.
So, will the Blue Jackets continue to win games that would appear to many of their fans to be meaningless, or will the Blue Jackets opt to play their younger players, position themselves for a draft lottery pick, trade some of their veterans over the off-season and clear their salary cap woes?
What happened to “Brick by Brick?”
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