The 5-Hole: Blue Jackets News and Notes – 1/5/10

Every Tuesday, WFNY’s The 5-Hole brings you up to date with the goings-on of the CBJ…

The Week That Was

This Week: 0-1-2, 2 points
Overall: 15-19-9, 39 points (5th division; 14th conference)

After my perceived “rock bottom” from last week, well, let’s just say that the road hasn’t started back up toward the top yet. The vultures are starting to circle coach Ken Hitchcock, though the front office and ownership continue to insist that his job is safe. The Jackets—losers of 20 of their last 23 games—are certainly not helping his case, though.

Tuesday, 12/29 in New York – Islanders 2, Jackets 1 – SO (Box Score) – Highlights
Thursday, 12/31 in Columbus – Predators 2, Jackets 1 – OT (Box Score) – Highlights
Saturday, 1/2 in Columbus – Avalanche 3, Jackets 2 (Box Score) – Highlights

Any playoff hopes are gone. Mathematically, not so much, but the Jackets would basically have to win at least 25 of their last 39 games to make a legitimate run, and anyone that’s watched this team so far this past six weeks knows that just ain’t happening. Further, now that St. Louis has fired its coach (and they’re still technically better than the Jackets), people are starting to ask the legitimate question about Ken Hitchcock’s job security. The situations couldn’t be much more similar, honestly. Both teams hired their respective “old school” coaches about the same time, both started with young rosters, and both finally reached the playoffs at the same time. And then it goes on: both teams seemingly either tuned out or stopped believing in their coaches’ systems at almost the same time. The Jackets look lost, much like the Blues do.

I would talk about these three games, but it makes me tired to do so. Same story. Do just enough to lose, usually at the end of the game. In the case of the Nashville game, it was a brutal turnover deep in their own zone in OT to lose it. Against Colorado, it was a soft goal given up with less than a minute left in regulation. Against the Isles, it was a lack of any kind of scoring in a shootout, including Fedor Tyutin yet AGAIN participating in lieu of skilled forwards. I just can’t figure out why these guys can’t climb out of their rut.

Up Next

Another long week, with five games in the next eight nights. The Jackets are out in western Canada, where they begin the trek Tuesday night in Vancouver (25-16-1, 51pts). They then play an inverse-Clash-of-the-Titans in Edmonton (16-22-4, 36pts) on Thursday, followed by a trip to Calgary (24-12-5, 53pts) on Friday. They finish the week back in Columbus (seriously? a Friday in freaking Calgary and a Sunday in Columbus? That’s almost fair) on Sunday against Dallas (18-12-11, 47pts). The good news is that they are done heading west for the most part, with only one SoCal swing and one trip to Colorado left. Everything else is in the Central or Eastern time zones. Not that it much matters now.

Full Schedule

Team Rankings

Since I haven’t been able to do a ton of game previews so far this year, I wanted to add this new section to highlight the different performance of the various units on the team, and to compare them to last week, last season, and the league-at-large.

Offense:
Current: 2.56 gpg (23rd)
Last Post: 2.65 gpg (21st)
2008-2009: 2.68 gpg (21st)

Defense:
Current: 3.14 gapg (25th)
Last Post: 3.23 gapg (27th)
2008-2009: 2.72 (t9th)

Power Play:
Current: 34-for-160, 21.3% (6th)
Last Post: 33-for-153, 21.6% (7th)
2008-2009: 41-for-322, 12.7% (30th)

Penalty Kill:
Current: 145-for-178, 81.5% (15th)
Last Post: 135-for-167, 80.8% (15th)
2008-2009: 282-for-346, 82.1% (13th)

Two units trending in opposite directions: the offense slipped further by scoring just four goals in their three games, but the defense and PK continued to improve incrementally. It bears repeating from last week that if they can keep the defensive improvement coming and just find a way to score a few more goals here and there, improvement in wins and losses should follow. That’s still a big “if”, of course, as they look completely unable to score anymore.

Who’s Hot, Who’s Not

Hot: It’s hard to give this out, but it goes to the goaltenders again. These two are not playing “great” per se, but they have definitely stepped their collective game up and are helping to shore up the team’s biggest hole of late: keeping pucks out of their nets. That’s what makes this so sad…

Not: The Jackets’ Offense. These guys have seemingly forgotten how to score. They’re trying too hard by not trying hard enough, if that makes sense. They try so hard to set up the perfect scoring opportunities via passes that they’ve gotten away from what made them such a tough team last year: paying the price and doing the dirty work in the opponent’s crease to get those dirty, backbreaking goals.I said last week that if the defense can improve, the scoring should come, as we’ve seen it before this year. I’m not so sure now. The entire team is thinking about it all too much, and with a young team that’s just death.

Injury Update

There were a couple of minor injuries to guys like Jared Boll (hand) and Andrew Murray (lower body), but both are expected to play Tuesday night. Derek MacKenzie was called up from Syracuse on an “emergency” basis to fill in for Raffi Torres, who is ill as of this morning. Defenseman Mike Commodore has missed time as a healthy scratch for three games (translation: BENCHED), but may also play Tuesday night.

The team is still without Derek Dorsett and Rostislav Klesla, though the former is said to be close. Klesla will still be out until at least early February, though I would still not expect to see him back before the Olympic break in the middle of that month.

Quote of the Week

We’ve got a plan and we’re willing to stick with it. And if it costs me my job then it costs me my job, but there is a plan. It would be easy to sit out young guys and play stop-gap (players) but we are not doing that. We trust how good these guys are going to be. … We have gone through growing pains with guys and we are going to stay with that program. I really see light at the end of the tunnel. I see where guys like Brassard and Voracek are at and where they were at six weeks ago and there’s a dramatic change.
–Coach Ken Hitchcock

A “plan” eh? We’ve yet to see evidence of it. He was talking about playing younger players despite mistakes, which is an odd statement considering Derick Brassard scored a goal against Colorado only to see nearly NO ice time in the third period because of a mistake made in the neutral zone. In fact, the one knock on Hitchcock throughout his career is that he’s ALWAYS reticent to play young players in lieu of veterans. In the Jackets’ case, the veterans in question are simply not cutting it, but players like Brassard spend the entire game looking over their shoulder knowing they’ll get punished for every mistake. Meanwhile a guy like Kristian Huselius has provided little scoring and turns the puck over habitually, and remains on the ice.