Back in my formative years when the Blue Jackets were searching for relevancy and traction in Columbus, most people couldn’t get much deeper than talking about the guy who wore No. 61.
It made sense; Rick Nash was an All-Star, an Olympian, one of the only Blue Jackets players whose name carried national recognition and he scored a shit ton of goals (sadly, on bad teams). He was their most revered captain and the court of public opinion turned 180 degrees on Nash as he engineered his departure. But don’t lose sight of the fact that Nash willingly accepted the distinction as Columbus’ torch carrier, the guy who single-handedly sold the city to the rest of the NHL.
He managed to extricate Jeff Carter from a beach house on the Jersey Shore. That’s “key to the city” work, right there.
In Nash, the Blue Jackets finally had a “face of the franchise.” An identifiable, transcendent star that broke down some of the barriers in this market when it comes to penetrating the outer layers of fandom. The Blue Jackets have an extremely dedicated base of fans but, like every single mid-market team, they are always efforting to reach new fans and expand the hardcore group while engaging casual fans.
Nash helped them do that. When he left, there was a major void.
They went multiple seasons without a captain and preferred to do things by committee. It worked; they also made the playoffs in consecutive seasons after Nash’s departure and their collective approach allowed for several new faces to emerge. Sergei Bobrovsky, Nick Foligno, Cam Atkinson, Ryan Johansen…from their new core, the Blue Jackets had options when it came to filling the role of front-facing star.
Foligno is their captain and handles a lot of responsibility. He’s a go-to interview for his thoughtfulness and candidness, and has become a damn good player first under Todd Richards and now under John Tortorella. Bobrovsky is so popular that he’s known only by his nickname, is a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, and probably their best player — but he’s comfortable exactly where he is.
But if it were up to me, the next “face of the franchise” would be 20-year-old defenseman Zach Werenski.
Out-of-town media and fans want to know everything about this kid. Where did he come from? Why did he kinda-sorta fly under the radar? (The truth is he was a rookie in a really good year for rookies, headlined by Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine). Many around the league attribute a chunk of the Blue Jackets’ success a year ago to the rapid rise of Werenski, a player who embodied the style of play that Tortorella wants.
Off the ice, Werenski is humble, confident and first-class to work with. He also works his ass off. The Blue Jackets could do a lot worse than plastering his face all over their marketing materials.
HAPPY TORTS
The Blue Jackets scored five goals (again) on Tuesday night.
They won their fourth straight game, their fifth in six overall.
They owned the puck and had plenty of scoring chances.
What made Tortorella happy? Their defense.
[You know you’re a coach when…]
“(Tuesday) was probably one of our most effective games being on the right side of the puck, being above the puck with our reloads and causing a lot of problems for the opposing team in the neutral zone, which gets our transition going,” Tortorella said. “Those are probably two of the biggest positives in a game that had quite a few positives.”
Now, checking and playing defense tie closely into shot shares and possession data, so we’ll jive with Tortorella here. The Blue Jackets were a 60-plus percent Corsi team on Saturday in Minnesota and came close to that on Tuesday in Winnipeg, and went a long way toward helping them secure all four points on the two-game swing.
PLEASE BE GOOD, PLEASE BE GOOD
Apparently, Some Guy on Reddit scored a happen-chance meeting with JJ Abrams and Episode IX co-writer Chris Terrio. He was able to ask Abrams a few questions about the final installment of the sequel trilogy, which Abrams (allegedly) said was going to be taken “elsewhere” in comparison to previous films.
Because so many people ripped him for The Force Awakens, claiming it was a reborn version of A New Hope — a bad take, by the way — there’s trepidation about bringing Abrams back to complete the trilogy he started. But an important point was made in Star Wars land, regarding this report: Episode IX is not only the conclusion to this trilogy, but it also must wrap a bow around the entire story of this canon of characters…at least, for now.
I can’t say I’m too worried about it, but I haven’t seen The Last Jedi so there’s plenty of speculation to come. But having Abrams back to write an original story that concludes this trilogy seems like the right move and I will reserve judgment until December 2019.
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