WaitingForNextYear

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

The Week That Was

Week: 2-1-0, 4 points
Overall: 30-24-6, 66 points (3rd division; 6th conference)

The Jackets finished a staggering stretch of six games in nine days, which included two one-game road trips. They limped to the finish line a bit against Anaheim, but it was clear they were a worn out hockey club. And, considering the results of the six game stretch (4-1-1), it is really hard to be mad at the team for too long after Saturday’s egg-laying at home against the Ducks. The only gripe I have is that it was the game my wife and I chose to drop the money to go and see in person. But, considering they are on a 6-1-1 stretch that has gotten them into the playoff standings again, we’ll let it slide. This time.

Wednesday, 2/18 in Columbus – Blue Jackets 4, Blues 3 (Recap)
Thursday, 2/19 in Toronto – Blue Jackets 4, Maple Leafs 3 – SO (Recap)
Saturday, 2/21 in Columbus – Ducks 5, Blue Jackets 2 (Box Score) – Highlights

A few quick words about the Ducks game, and then I will move on. Like when I play golf and take an 8 on a hole, it’s best to just put a fence up on the score card and get it back on the next tee. The Jackets had no jump, and Steve Mason looked average at best (though he got absolutely NO help from anyone in front of him, either). The worst was the Jackets made it 2-1 early in the second, and promptly let the Ducks come right down and score again like a minute later to make it 3-1. “We made it a game when it was 2-1,” coach Ken Hitchcock said. “The third goal was the killer. We made a poor change. We got beat one-on-one.” From my seat, it was obvious that Anaheim clearly wanted it a lot more. Part of it was that the team just looked flat-out exhausted; six games in nine days will do that to a hockey team. Aaron Portzline referred to it as “fighting a mixed martial arts cage match after running a marathon” in his recap. The Jackets got the fighting part right, as there were no fewer than four dust-ups between the two clubs during the game. The biggest irony: allowing only 13 shots on goal was a franchise record for the Jackets. Sadly, giving up five goals in that span makes the stat “deceiving,” as coach Ken Hitchcock called it.

Let’s move on. The Jackets are out in the Western Canadian corridor this week, for their final road trip past the Central time zone of the year. That is one of the schedule advantages they have over the last 22 games: after this week, they don’t have to travel too far from home. They’re still in sixth place in the conference as the race has broken into two packs in recent days: a small gap has emerged between the teams above 63 points (of which the Jackets are one) and the teams at 60 and below. Make no mistake: the Jackets need to earn AT LEAST three points on this three game Western Canadian swing, but they no longer suffer the indignity of dropping out entirely with one loss (like, on Saturday).

In roster news, still nothing to report on the trading deadline front, though the Jackets did make a small move, claiming big centerman Chris Gratton off of waivers from Tampa Bay.  At 6’4” and 220 pounds, Gratton is an imposing figure. He’s played 15 years of pro hockey, but was toiling in the minor leagues for Tampa. This isn’t an earth-shattering move, as Gratton is clearly on the downside of his career. But, it comes cheap ($150,000; contract expires at season’s end) and brings some experience to a club that can use all the experiential help it can get at this point in the season. He will most likely play on the fourth line, but he also has the flexibility to play on the wing somewhere if needed. Some of the other things about him that the Jackets like are his physicality, his ability to win face-offs (a team struggle beyond Manny Malhotra and Michael Peca), and experience and ability to play on an improving Penalty Kill unit. a The 33-year-old Gratton has played with Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Colorado, and Florida in his career, notching 567 points (214G, 353A) in 1086 career games.

Playoff Update

We’ve begun running this section, thanks to the data provided at the wonderful Sports Club Stats website that runs daily simulations and predicts probability of playoff finishes by conference. This site is updated daily, and also weights each game to show how every outcome affects each team in the race. 

Each week from here on out, The 5-Hole is going to link up to this site and provide you with the playoff probabilities every Tuesday. We’ll start from fifth place on down, since the top four on SCS’s charts are all at or above 99.9% probability to make the playoffs, and no one fifth and below really has a realistic shot to knock one of them out.

There has definitely been some separation in the past week, as we see a drop-off from almost 44% to just under 29% between ninth and tenth position on the list. And, honestly, the bottom four teams are flirting with being omitted entirely from my list! This week’s Western Conference playoff probabilities standings, thanks to Sports Club Stats:

(key: points – derived from record, 2 pts for a win, 0 for a loss, 1 for an overtime loss; G-I-H – games in hand; this number is the amount of games the team has left subtracted from the number of games played by the team who has played the most in the conference; Record – the team’s record, with wins, losses, and overtime losses [shoot-out losses count as overtime losses]; Playoff% is the probability in percent of the team making the playoffs based on their simulations)

Up Next

The Jackets have a three-game road trip this week, out in the proverbial Western Canadian corridor. All three games have playoff implications, but the final two have far more than does the first. The Jackets are in Calgary (76pts, 3rd) on Tuesday night. They move on to Edmonton (63pts, 9th) on Thursday night (a BIG one in the standings), and then finish the week on Sunday in Vancouver (68pts, 5th).  The Canucks tilt will also be important, for obvious reasons. The Jackets need to come out of this road trip with AT LEAST three points. Anything more than four points would be excellent.

Full Schedule

Who’s Hot, Who’s Not

Hot: Rick Nash. After a stretch of only one goal in nine games post-Detroit-hat-trick, The Captain is back with a vengeance. He has scored a goal and an assist in each of the last three games while logging over 20 minutes of ice time in each. The Jackets will need their Captain to step up the rest of the way if they hope to make the playoffs and do anything of consequence should they make them.

Not: Puck handling. Second week in a row. It’s still hard to call out any one player when the team is on such a good stretch of play, and it’s even harder to pin a bad loss like Saturday’s on one specific thing. But, the one thing that is still worrisome is the puck handling overall. To give up five goals on 13 shots is indicative or more than just an off-night for your goal-tender. The Ducks got way too many solid scoring chances. It begs the question: how would the team be doing if they didn’t have such an impressive goal-tender on most nights?

Injury Update

Fredrik Modin is still out. Also, as we reported in the Ducks preview, Jason Chimera is still suffering some lingering effects of his groin injury. He missed Saturday’s game, but hopes to play Tuesday night in Calgary. Chimera is missing his normal speed burst that makes him such a valuable player to this team. Without it, he just doesn’t have the same impact. This injury may be something that nags him the rest of the season.

Quotes of the Week

The puck was like a hand grenade sometimes for us out there. It’s one of those nights. The big key is, you don’t let one turn into two. We have a big trip coming up (beginning Tuesday in Calgary).
–Defenseman Mike Commodore, reflecting on the lackluster team performance on Saturday against the Ducks.

It was brutal. I wasn’t very good at all. I let in a couple of bad goals at untimely times. I couldn’t do a whole lot right.
–Goaltender Steve Mason, also after Saturday’s loss.

Sixth 10 – A Perfect Time to Rally: Still In It
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Sixth Ten: 6-3-1, 13 points

The Jackets flirted with falling off the table as they have done in every other year of their existence, but then something unexpected (to the fan base, at least) happened: they went on a tear, and managed to climb their way right back into the middle of the playoff hunt. They won two coming out of the ASB this year, only then to lose three straight in rather humbling fashion. Then, conference-leading San Jose came to town, and the game changed. We saw a refocused, re-energized Jackets team.

A Rocky Start

This ten game stretch started in pretty rough fashion, as the Jackets dropped the first two in fairly weak displays. Both St. Louis and Pittsburgh out-worked the Jackets, and Steve Mason’s struggles with mononucleosis came into play, including him missing that second game in favor of Wade Dubielewicz, who struggled. Things looked bleak, as the very night after the Pittsburgh loss in which Columbus looked lethargic, the conference-leading Sharks were coming to town. Some of us predicted doom.

Skid Busters

This team has been up and down many times this season. When San Jose came to town, they were decidedly down, having lost three straight. It looked to be four, as San Jose has been a juggernaut most of the campaign. For whatever reason, however, the Sharks have brought out the best in the Jackets, as all four meeting between the two were very, very good games. This fourth and final game did not disappoint, either. The Jackets were an entirely different team, and managed to prevail in another overtime thriller.  As we would see, this skid-buster game would be a springboard to bigger and better things, in spite of some scheduling devilry. Wins over Colorado, rival Detroit, and Carolina on the road got the Jackets back into the playoff standings, and set up a big matchup with the Dallas Stars.

A Hiccup, A Rebound, and A Milestone

Dallas came to town, and with their arrival came a shot at sole possession of fifth place in the standings at the time. The Stars took an early lead, but the Jackets battled back and took a 2-1 lead of their own, only to give it right back. The teams skated for over 30 minutes tied at 2, and then through five minutes of overtime. A shoot-out would decide it, with Dallas prevailing. The Jackets got a point out of the affair, but it was a game that got away that would have been a huge boost to the club overall. The Jackets found themselves at a mini fork in the road, and chose to take the high road once again. With another chance against the St. Louis Blues, the Jackets came out and dominated early. In the span of a six-game-in-nine-day-stretch, they took their foot off the gas pedal, but managed to hold on for a much-needed win. They followed that win up with another hard-earned two points on the road in Toronto, which also notched a milestone for coach Ken Hitchcock, as it was his 500th career win as an NHL head coach.

A Missed Opportunity

Game #60 was one that could have possibly pushed the Jackets even higher into the playoff standings, while also all but dashing the hopes of one of the teams chasing them for one of those coveted playoff spots. As we detailed above, however, the Jackets just didn’t have it at all on Saturday, and so they closed out the 10-game stretch in the same way in which they kicked it off: a whimper and a loss. Thankfully, it was the seven games between those losses—in which Columbus earned a huge 13 points—that made this 10-game mini-season, and that have Columbus still very much alive and in good shape to make a playoff run.

Taking Notice

The best part of this strong stretch of hockey is that it has ignited the passions of the Columbus fanbase. Saturday’s game, in spite of the result, was a great sign: a standing-room-only crowd of over 18,600 took in the game at Nationwide. This is music to the ears of the front-office, and should be as well to the casual Jackets fan. Any signs of life from the local market mean good things for the club in the future, in the face of a bleak economy and a league that has penalized Columbus for lack of market growth even in just this last off-season. The TV ratings on FSOhio are up, as well. All definitely good signs as they continue down the stretch. Playoff hockey would only help this prognosis, as from the looks of things the team would have no problem selling out playoff games.

Looking Ahead

22 games to go. As we have talked about almost non-stop here, there are currently several teams in the thick of the race for the last four playoff spots. Things have started to separate just a bit, and thankfully Columbus has put themselves on the “good” side of that early separation. They have their last real “road trip” of the season this week, as they kick off the seventh 10-game stretch out in the west of Canada. Columbus has made themselves into a very tough team to play in Columbus, and their road play has continued to improve since the watershed six-game trip back in December and January. Their travel schedule is favorable to the majority of the Western Conference the rest of the way, which will hopefully keep the club fresher and more focused. Their veteran leadership should help with that as well, as it is light-years ahead of where it has been in previous seasons.

Columbus appears ready to take the next step—a step they’ve never taken before—and make the playoffs. It’s going to come down to execution, effort, and focus over these last 22 games. They’ve shown they can play with all of those attributes. They’re going to have to keep it up. No one’s going to give it to them. They have to go out and take it. We will see if they are ready to do so.