Columbus Blue Jackets: A Curious Case Study in Small-Market Hockey

The 2021 NHL season has shown how competitive the professional side of hockey is. If anything, this season has shown just how much certain analytics matter in building a contending team. With the new division alignments for travel purposes, there are some clubs that have emerged out of the ashes as your-easy-to-spot favorites, then you have your dark horses, your pretenders-or-contenders, and of course, your fringe teams, and the tank jobs. 

The Blue Jackets are one such club that is struggling to find their identity this season. They are definitely a pretender-or-contender. While on paper, the Jackets look like a team that should be running the table with an absolute stellar side. Instead, they have been the equivalent to lukewarm hot cocoa: their play doesn't give that warm feeling that things are going right. Despite some dominant performances, they have been absolutely terrible in others. There is severe inconsistency in the lineup. On paper, this team should a Stanley Cup contender. In reality, they're fighting for the final wild-card spot; ironically the only consistent part of the Blue Jackets is as such. 

The Jackets are a curious case study of the small-market NHL team. To keep pace with some of the NHL juggernauts like the Blackhawks and Lightning, they need to embrace development more than buy in the free agency market. This has led to very carefully crafted drafts and trades by general manager Jarmo Kekolainen, the first European NHL GM. He has slowly rebuilt Columbus from the fallout of the Rick Nash trade to a genuine Cup contender, but they simply cannot get it done. The real area Kekolainen has not figured out is the most critical: coaching. Any NHL fan knows John Tortorella's reputation. His tenures as a head coach have been mixed, knowing that he tends to be demanding and has no time for feelings or egos. This has proved to be his fatal flaw; his style does not fare well with the modern player. This was seen in Pierre Luc Dubois's situation. 2019-20 was a crucial season for the Jackets and Dubois was emerging as the superstar of the team. When it came to free agency, he wanted a lucrative extension Kekolainen had successfully avoided dishing out to other players (i.e. Sergei Bobrovsky and Josh Anderson) in the past but at the cost of losing talented players for nothing as a result. Due to the salary cap, Kekolainen has relied heavily on team-friendly contracts to keep replenishing the roster. Dubois knowing his talent was greater than the small capital city of Ohio decided he was not going to keep waiting and getting mistreated by Tortorella. Kekalainen obliged his trade request and sent him to Winnipeg in return for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic. How's it working out you might ask?

Laine's talent is well-known, but he is an absolute thorn in the side of demanding head coaches. His playstyle does not fit Tortorella's demanding system at all, leading the young Finn to be benched numerous times. Meanwhile, Jack Roslovic has made it as the first-line center after playing third-line minutes in Winnipeg. This trade was not only a bombshell, but it made no sense from the beginning. First of all, you're swapping a center for a winger, so you're already losing a more talented position player. Next, if it was known Laine would not fit well with the team, why did you trade for him? In the end, Kekolainen decided to swap two disgruntled superstars in the hope of keeping the team fresh and in a cap-friendly position. The results on the ice have spoken for themselves: at times Columbus will be flying high, but then dip incredibly low. Knowing this inconsistent style will continue so long as Torts is coach, they will probably gut out the 5th place division finish and squeak into the playoffs. And once they get eliminated, and they will, the roster will get reset as bigger teams come in for their high-profile free agents. Look at Josh Anderson and Artemi Panarin. These guys were two cornerstones to the Jackets' sweep of the Lightning in 2019. Yet when they wanted long-term deals, Kekolainen scoffed at it. They found much better options in Montreal and New York respectively and probably for the best. They never fit the mold of the small-market team built by analytics and careful transactions. They play like big-market players and they know it. But imagine if Kekolainen was more ambitious...he'd have a team of Panarin, Anderson, Seth Jones, Zach Werenski, Cam Atkinson, Boone Jenner, Nick Foligno, and Sergei Bobrovsky. This a kind of team that would be labeled as big-team killers, but alas many pieces have been sent off, signed elsewhere, and replaced by someone with a little less skill. It's a sad cycle Columbus seems to find themselves in.

I don't exactly know where the Blue Jackets will go from this. If they manage to make the playoffs, they will probably start creating expectations, but can they reach hockey's El Dorado with Tortorella as head coach? That will have to be determined. Will Tortorella finally embrace Laine's talent and find a way to structure the game plan around his superstar? Of course not, and that's the main problem. Kekolainen has also given Torts a vote of confidence so seems like Torts is here to stay for a minute. Good luck, Jackets, you will need it.