It’s been a long season in Columbus, so how do they fix it?
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23 Comments
I just hope this is the hockey godâs way of giving Columbus Bedard
I've been waiting on this.
Part of me thinks that a coaching change after this season might need to be in order. I was a believer in Larson at the start of the season but I'm beginning to lose that feeling and there are some really good coaches now available like Bruce Boudreau. There's a lot of things that need tweeked but I'm still on the notion that it's not much that needs done to get this team successful
This has been the toughest season to watch since 2011-12, but I feel like this has been so much worse because we literally have Laine and Gaudreau which is one of if not the most talented first line wing duos weâve ever had yet we are this awful. Might just be my recency bias though because that 11-12 season was GRUELING
Hopefully Texier will come back at some point too. He was slowly getting better.
Lars needs to go, clearly. I'd even extend that out to the whole coaching staff, including Legace. Elvis is not the guy, and I'm disappointed we put all our chips in on him. Too committed to the fun personality and some flashy showmanship. Korpi and Tarry should be the tandem, we should re-sign Gavrikov and ship out Roslovic/Nyquist. Just one fan's opinion.
Moving korposalo for picks/prospects is the wisest move to build going forward. He's played well and there are more than a few contending teams that would bulk up their back up situation. That and the news that nyquist might be worth more now because teams can stash him on ltir till the playoffs, and trading gavrikov, they should get decent assets to continue the "retool"
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Step 1: Sell everything not nailed down at deadline.
Step 2: Send Sillinger, Marchenko & Johnson to AHL for playoff run
Step 3: Fire Jarmo, Larsen & JD after the season is over.
Step 4: Hope to god we get #1 Pick
Step 5: Pick Bedard
The time has come to retire the old CBJ team logo ! Jack Roslovic is a player than could be move.
Itâs been a rough year for sure. But dang Bedard would look good between Johnny and Laine in a couple of years.
The year has been a disaster with injuries but at the end of the day, this wasnât a playoff year regardless. Hopefully they Gavrikov if he wonât resign and then can get a #1 center in the draft. Bedard or not, Fantilli or Carlsson (? Probably butchered the spelling) are projected to be that legit center as well.
But Columbus getting Bedard and watching the league absolutely lose their MIND would be hilarious. Not to mention all of the âwell he isnât a centerâ and âhe is probably overrated anywayâ that would come with it afterwards.
I'll never understand the contract CJB gave Merzlikins. Especially for someone who had yet to prove himself to be a consistent NHL level goalie. To give him a contract with such a long term and for that large of an amount considering he had only played 60 games in the league, is just stupid! Not to mention they included "No Trade" and "No Move" clauses as well.Â
I know that other things influence why CBJ gave him the contract. Korpi's health, CBJ trying to prove they had a true number one to fill the hole that Bob left. As well as what happened that summer all contributed to why they did it. But in all it was a bad deal for the team.
If I was Jarmo, I would be shopping Merlikins hard to the other teams and even offering to keep a chunk of the salary to push the deal along. Korpi and Tarasov can hold things together over the next season or two while the young team develops, everyone gets healthy, and the team sheds some of the older contracts so that cap space can be used to bring in some help.
Oh yeah, the team could use a real HC too.
Here's how bad the injury situation is: Dallas, the Rangers, Seattle, Calgary, Tampa Bay, Boston, and Nashville combined have six more man games lost to injury than Columbus has all by itself. Columbus has as many as the #2 team and the #12 team combined. If you cut their total in half, they would still be in 8th place.
Werenski and Voracek are making $17.8 million between them. They're both out for the season after playing 13 and 11 games, respectively.
Need Bedard or Fantilli
I was hoping the video would start up and you would just throw a match into a trash can and watch it burn.
The Jackets overachieved last year on the strength of their best offensive season ever (256 goals). The overachievement raised expectations the club could improve on last year's 81 point performance. The Jackets were often able to outscore their mistakes. Without the offense they flashed a year ago, the Jackets got exposed this year. Unfortunately, this season crashed in a hurry. Without the players who fueled last year's improvement (Voracek, leading scorer. Bjorkstrand, leading goal scorer, Texier, probably their best player before he left) and two players whose contributions go mostly underappreciated (Justin Danforth who was best at chasing down loose pucks and fighting for pucks along the wall and Zach Werenski who QB's the power play and fights for pucks along the wall as good as any), the clubs offensive zone possession time went way down as did their opportunities for power plays. The Jackets didn't really play well together for most of the first half of the season, but that was largely due to the fact the players they had weren't supposed to play together, but had to because of injuries.
Better days are ahead. I doubt we see Texier or Voracek again. Most of the Jackets off season strategy will revolve around how they do in the draft lottery. Win the Bedard sweepstakes and I'd go all out to sign Jonathan Toews and give him whatever he wants to come in and work with their young centers like Bedard, Sillinger, Johnson and the rest of the group. Toews has worked wonders this year working with Chicago's young centers as the club leads the NHL in faceoff percentage (over 55%) and Toews has done wonders to make Max Domi look like a legit center for the first time in his career. If they do land Bedard, he'll be glad to see teammate Stanislav Svozil, who has assisted on so many of his goals in Regina this year and looks a cinch to be in the Jackets top 6 within the next two years.
Miss out on Bedard, and I'd probably draft Michkov and wait 3 years for him, while pursuing a #1 center in free agency. I strongly suspect Dylan Larkin could well be available. If so, I'd pursue Larkin on a 7 year deal. By the time Michkov reached RFA status, Larkin's contract would be expiring and the club could afford to extend Michkov. Barring a miracle in the next 26 days, it appears Vladislav Gavrikov will be gone. It makes you wonder how much Gavrikov is asking for. John Marino and Brandon Carlo are a similar age with similar numbers. Marino make 22 million over 5 years and Carlo is making 20.5 million over 5 years. It is suspected Gavrikov is asking 5 years and 33 million. If he can get that much, then I say more power to him.
As a CBJ fan I agree that last year was a bit of a false start, setting expectations too high. They really need to get better defensively, complete passes, not turn the puck over, play confidently for 60 minutes. They are still in developemnt. The best thing about the year is that a lot fo young players have had a chance to learn at this level. Losing Werenski also cripples there blue line as he was so much by himself. They will get there. As for the goalies, they are both injury prone and seem to go back and forth so it's hard to say with them. They both could look totally different next year.
The Jackets fans on Twitter think the sky is falling with the team. I felt they have always kinda overachieved in the eyes of the base. Torts' system made them seem better than they actually were, and were paying the price for the all in push with Duchene before they were even ready. And have only lost core players since.
This is technically year two of Jarmo's rebuild, so there's very little to measure going forward. There's interesting skill prospects, but team defense remains a mess, and they still aren't very tough.
With the amount of talent still locked into the Eastern Conference, maybe it's not the worst time to suck (this is copium). Larsen absolutely has to go at the end of the year, that locker room is a disaster. I'm a believer in Elvis getting back to starter level and Tarasov improving to starter level as well. The two of them (+ Korpisalo) have displayed their talent in games where we have 5+ goals against, our defense is just historically bad. At the deadline I expect Gavrikov and Korpisalo to be moved, possibly Nyquist (pending injury status) and Roslovic or some depth guys. Buy out Gudbranson, sign a center and defenseman. Bring Texier and some of our emerging prospects into the lineup next season, and try to suck less with a new coach.
we have to rebuild every year it seems like. We had a solid lineup for most of the Torts era and when we added Panarin and then Duchene in 2019 it felt like we finally had it all together to go on a run. We swept the Lightning, we played Boston close… then all those guys left and we suck again. Again! We went from bottom of the league in 2015 to the highs of 2019 and back to the bottom in 2023. I'm so jealous of other teams' stability…
Merzlikins to Demko – just for the sake of fun to think about đ
The status should just be a retool because the road map looks to be getting the kids experience, getting a new blue line developed and being competitive in 2024+. There is alot of good ingredients here for a good time but the team structure is still cooking with all the valuable young kids. Getting a better head coach and getting some of the blue line prospects up Columbus is going to look like a much better team next year+