Columbus New Jackets
Columbus Blue Jackets, infamously known among Hockey fans high and wide as the only team in the league to never have made the playoffs, are experiencing a resurgence of hope. Of course they have had much less chances than most, seeing as they were awarded the NHL franchise only in the year 2000, but this could be the season that this agonizing stigma is finally erased.
Columbus is currently holding on to that valuable 8th spot in the Western Conference, following yesterday’s 4-3 victory against the Colorado Avalanche. The win was the Jackets third win – in as many tries against the Avs. Three was obviously the lucky number of the night for the Union Blue, as they scored three goals in the third – in just under 3 minutes of play.
The Ohio based club has now managed to put together an excellent team, with both star quality and nice depth. Rick Nash is the Captain and face of the franchise; again nominated for the All Star game later this month, and tops the scoring chart with 39 points (17 goals + 22 assists). Former free agent and Panther, Kristian Huselius, was the game winner against Colorado and has 28 points on the season (13+15). Columbus has another seven players above or just below the 20 point mark, making for good secondary scoring.
The exclamation point in bold however, goes to rookie goalie Steve Mason – who has the Rookie of the Year award all but in his hands – after racking up impressive goalie stats and sitting proudly atop those number in the NHL so far. In addition to this comes a youngster like Nikita Filatov; who will have many productive NHL seasons in him, if all continues to go well. There is now – real hope – of a bright future for this team.
One thing that might be lacking to the mix is veteran leadership of the kind that brings success in a hard, tight, playoff series. It has therefore come as no surprise that the club is looking around the league for reinforcements. TFP reported last week that the Blue Jackets organization was willing to add to the player roster and salary; leading to some transfer rumors emerging. Most of them have so far centered on the struggling Canadian franchises Ottawa and Toronto. Whilst they are struggling in the Eastern Conference, they do have some decent players; whether, as speculation would have it, it is Jason Spezza, Nik Antropov or someone else they have in mind – there are some possible steals to be made here.
Acquiring some new, yet proven players, to fill out the Jackets in Colombus, may be a good way to try and take the club a further step forward. But, first things first, and that playoff spot must first be subjugated. The form is good, if not to say immense even, and next up is a two game road trip – including the New Jersey Devils. Panther fans will be hoping for a Blue Jacket triumph, and if the statistics are anything to go after, Columbus should have a pretty good chance to come out on top of proceedings. The Ohioans have a 7-1-1 record against teams from the Eastern Conference; the second best among Western Conference teams, only San Jose has done better 8-1-0 (and we remember very well where that lone loss came from don’t we…)
The Columbus club has also successfully turned their Nationwide Arena in to a fort, winning 12-6-1 and outscoring opponents 53-48. In their last road trip, the longest for the season, they also managed to win 4-2-0; outscoring the opposing teams 15-9. The reason why the Blue Jackets are not higher up the standing is the slow start to the season. Much of that could however be attributed to being a consequence of making numerous trades in the pre-season. Now that the team has had time to gel, they seem to be firing on all cylinders and the race up the standings seems to have just started for the New Jackets of the 08/09 season.
See, there’s always hope in the NHL, there’s always a way!!!!
Which means, the same goes for the Panthers … we can always be hopeful – at some point or another things start to look up!!
It’s good to hear that such a new franchise is succedding – sometimes, as in this case, it can be a bit of a slow climb, but a fun one for both the players and fans, who may grow in their fondness of the franchise!
The longer the struggle, the greater the relief, I suppose. And yes, as a Panther fan one does see similarities with the Columbus one and hopefully both franchises can truly establish themselves in the next few years, by shutting up the inevietable critics with performances on the ice…