One year ago, the scrappy Blue Jackets looked like a problem — a team built for the playoffs. In back-to-back post-seasons, they caused fits to the Lightning and Leafs, two teams with so much more talent, but no answer for Columbus’ gritty resolve. The Blue Jackets, for better or worse, offered a playbook on how unassuming teams can beat skilled ones in a more lawless land.
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The only problem? They have to get there first.
Over a full 82-game season, it was unlikely Columbus would’ve even made the playoffs in 2019-20. It’s something that makes the team’s series win even sweeter, but also made their chances of returning in 2020-21 unlikelier. The Blue Jackets were a 50-50 bet to make the postseason last year and the coin flipped tails.
Decisively so too, as the team looked a lot closer to what many expected at the start of 2019-20 after the great talent exodus. The Blue Jackets didn’t just miss the playoffs, they weren’t even close, finishing dead last in their division. Behind the Red Wings!
That brings us here, to the 2021-22 season, where it’s difficult to envision Columbus being anywhere but the league’s basem*nt.
The Projection
The rebuild has begun and a long season is about to commence. In a very tough Eastern Conference, it’s difficult to picture a team like Columbus making a surprise run. There’s a nine percent chance the team reaches the 90-point mark, but that alone isn’t enough. The Blue Jackets are a longshot and it would be a shock to see a competitive season from them. Hard work may beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard, but that applies more to a single game or series and not an entire season. Over such a long stretch, talent usually wins out and Columbus is low on it.
That’s not a bad thing for this franchise in its current spot. The Blue Jackets peaked in 2018-19 and did have a very strong team that year — it just wasn’t strong enough to go the distance. It was even harder to maintain that peak and find another gear with every key player seeking greener pastures elsewhere. If the goal is winning a championship, the team needed a reset and to build a new core from the ground up.
Bottoming out and securing high picks is the right call and as it stands now Columbus is well-positioned to land near the bottom in this upcoming season. There is very clear separation between the Blue Jackets and the three other bottom feeders as the next tier begins, but Columbus still has a great chance at securing high lottery odds next summer. The Blue Jackets have a 52 percent chance at landing in the league’s bottom five and an 83 percent chance at being in the bottom 10. The playoffs aren’t really an option and being in such a competitive division also means the team’s division placement is among the most certain in the league with a 64 percent chance at finishing in eighth.
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That could mean drafting a future franchise player, something the team is currently in desperate need of. That was supposed to be any combination of Artemi Panarin, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Seth Jones, and Zach Werenski, but it currently looks like none of the above. That’s a big problem that won’t be easy to solve.
The Roster
For clarity, each player’s projected win value shown is over a full 82-game pace to better visualize each player’s expected true talent level. The team’s simulated record accounts for injuries and expected time missed using a games played projection.
Of the team’s previous Core Four only Werenski remains and though he’s being paid like a franchise player, it’s more the cost of staying in Columbus than it is a reflection of his ability. While he is Columbus’ best player, that says a fair bit more about the team than it actually does about him.
For Werenski to be a franchise player he would need to become elite, a player who belongs in the league’s upper echelon of defencemen. There’s a big difference between what players like Cale Makar and Charlie McAvoy can accomplish versus Werenski and it’s part of the reason those teams are stronger. It’s not impossible for Werenski to become an elite player, but it is harder to imagine as he enters his prime. This is what he is and frankly there isn’t really a certainty he’s a true number one at this point either.
By GSVA he’s right on the cusp at 1.5 wins, but in fairness to him the model likely does underrate his value due to the system he plays in and the players he plays with. Werenski is a stallion begging to be run free and while he does have some opportunity to roam, he’s obviously a bit more restricted compared to his peers. He led the Blue Jackets’ defence in zone exits and zone entries and is a terrific puck-moving asset for the club, but perhaps he could be even better with more opportunity. A new coach and system may just unlock that and it’s possible we see some offensive growth out of it.
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The big question of course is what Werenski looks like without his longtime partner. He and Jones have been attached at the hip since his rookie season, immediately looking one of the game’s best young pairs. For both players, this season will be an important test regarding their individual utility.
Based on public analytics, Werenski looks like the stronger bet at this present time. He moves the puck better, he defends his blue line better and his on-ice metrics are stronger. That last distinction is tough considering how often the duo played together, but over the last three seasons they’ve spent over 1,000 minutes apart. In that time Werenski has a 52 percent actual and expected goals rate while Jones drops to 49 percent. Some of that can be explained partly by competition, but not entirely. While Jones has been a negative expected goals driver relative to teammates in each of the last three seasons, Werenski has been average or better over the last two. His impact on actual goals is stronger too which should come as no surprise considering he’s the more dynamic player offensively. On a per-minute basis Werenski has outscored Jones in each of the last three seasons, averaging 1.07 points-per-60 at five-on-five to Jones’ 0.87. It’s a similar story on the power play too. Columbus didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter, but there’s an argument the team kept the better player.
It’s best not to focus on what’s gone, though, but about what’s here. Werenski is good, great even, but there’s another level he hasn’t quite reached and at 24 it’s difficult to know whether it’s a level he can reach. The tools are certainly there, it’s about putting it all together and with this being his sixth season it’s fair to wonder whether this is it. One reason to be optimistic though? Many of his best comps did become that and two of his most prominent were Roman Josi and John Carlson – the year before both broke out.
That’s a fantastic sign that Werenski can one day live up to his massive extension, the problem is the team he’s on. It’s a lot harder to break out without help. On defense he’s slated to be paired with Jake Bean, a once-promising prospect who had an uneven rookie season, struggling in a sheltered role. A top-four role seems like a bit much, but the team isn’t exactly flush with options with other newcomer Adam Boqvist also being pretty green.
Boqvist was one of the pieces acquired in exchange for Jones and he has some exciting comps of his own (namely Erik Karlsson). He’s still very young and brimming with potential as a puck-mover, but is still prone to the odd rookie mistake. That likely makes him a bad fit next to Werenski at this stage of his career, especially since he too has to prove he can play higher up the lineup. His on-ice numbers were quite strong last season and he’s certainly deserving of a bigger challenge, but there’s no guarantee he continues to flourish with more responsibility. Pairing him with the steady Vladislav Gavrikov, the team’s best defensive defender, is a savvy move. Gavrikov was a nice surprise in his rookie season and though his raw numbers plummeted last season, his relative numbers in terms of expected goals improved. He should be able to cover up for Boqvist’s freelancing.
With Jones gone and also David Savard, this is definitely a weaker defense corps than year’s past, but it’s still the “strength” of an overall weak roster. Really, the team doesn’t have any, but it’s at least better than forwards and goaltending.
There’s been this prevailing thought over the last couple of seasons that Columbus has strong goaltending, but that looked like it had more to do with the defensive structure in front of them. With a new coach, system and weaker blue line, Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo will be tested much further this upcoming season. It’s time to see how good they really are.
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While some observers don’t see too much of a difference between the two netminders, this model is much higher on Merzlikins and believes the starting job should be his. It honestly doesn’t seem close. Merzlikins has outperformed Korpisalo in each of the last two seasons in goals saved above average and goals saved above expected. In 60 games Merzlikins has saved 19.1 goals above average while Korpisalo has allowed 11.6, a nearly 30 goal difference that’s roughly matched when looking at above expected too. There, Merzlikins has allowed 2.7 while Korpisalo has allowed 26.7, a direct result of Merzlikins being a .920 goalie and Korpisalo sitting at .903.
Merzlikins’s save percentage may seem very impressive, but there’s a reason his goals saved above average numbers look stellar while above expected only looks average. He may have a .920, but his expected save percentage was .921 — basically no difference. Korpisalo’s expected save percentage is a bit lower at .917, but it really puts into perspective how much he’s letting the defense down. If he has as much trade value as he seems to, Columbus should probably run with it as his value is the main thing dragging the team’s goaltending score down. Merzlikins may not be anything special after accounting for defense, but he’s not far off from average starter territory which isn’t nothing.
The defense is poor, but it has promise. The same is true of Merzlikins in net. The forwards though? There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. That’s where the strongest teams generally earn the most value and it’s a real issue for Columbus whose forwards rank in the league’s bottom five. There’s OK depth here, sure, but no legitimate top-line talents let alone star players.
That was supposed to be Patrik Laine, acquired for Dubois, but his value took a complete nosedive after last season. After seeing a slight return to form in 2019-20 scoring 63 points in 68 games (while remaining a massive defensive liability), Laine struggled immensely in 2020-21. Part of that was coming to a new team that had nowhere near the same level of offensive support on it, but the other part was the sad truth that Laine just isn’t the player he’s made out to be. It’s not just that he struggles defensively, it’s that he doesn’t really drive offense either. He just scores points.
To his credit, Laine is pretty strong off the rush, but this isn’t a team that’s exactly built for that which makes his job a bit difficult. Still, he’s not much of a playmaker and struggles to create opportunities for himself. That became a real problem in Columbus where he only mustered 0.27 expected goals-per-60 for himself, a massive dropoff from the 0.62 range he was at in his prior two seasons with Columbus. His shot has also become a lot less lethal over time at five-on-five. Laine can still snipe on the power play, but over the last three seasons he’s settled in as a 10 percent shooter at five-on-five which is well below his 15.3 percent over his first two seasons. It meant scoring just 1.19 points-per-60, the lowest mark of his career so far and a big reason as to why he ended up with just 24 points in 46 games. That’s a 43-point pace.
If Laine isn’t scoring points then he isn’t doing much else and that’s the problem. It’s why he’s worth just 0.3 wins and that’s actually a step up from last season where he was worth minus-one wins. It’s what happens when you post an abhorrent 38 percent expected goals rate and an even uglier 33 percent actual goals rate. The problem was at both ends of the ice, but defence specifically was a major issue as the Blue Jackets allowed 0.42 more expected goals per 60 with Laine on the ice relative to teammates. That’s the worst of his career and the third worst of any forward last season.
Maybe a new coach can unlock his potential, but I don’t think it was wrong to not give Laine free reign last season just because he has a good shot. He needs to do more and this isn’t about becoming a complete 200-foot player because that shouldn’t be the expectation for a winger with his talent level. It’s about basic competence and being useful outside of scoring. The bar is on the floor and he still can’t reach it.
Patrik Laine had 21 points in 45 games for the Blue Jackets last season. (Kim Klement / USA TODAY Sports)
Laine wasn’t the only piece to come back in the Dubois deal and given how disappointing both players ended up being last season, it’s fair to wonder if the trade should actually be referred to as “the Jack Roslovic trade.” That’s at least how things started when he arrived in Columbus, ready to prove he was worthy of the bigger role he was craving in Winnipeg. In his first eight games as a Blue Jacket, Roslovic had four goals and nine points and was a positive possession player. He had an average Game Score of 1.02, a top-line rate, and it looked like he had arrived.
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Things really slowed down from there though. Roslovic scored at a 54-point pace the rest of the way, but it’s worth noting that of his 17 assists, 12 were secondary. He also got out-chanced and out-scored which wasn’t a great sign either. Overall, Roslovic was clearly a lot better than given credit for prior (I personally just saw him as a throw-in) and grades out as a borderline second-line center, but I wouldn’t read into that early flash. That’s not a bad thing and he can surely continue growing, especially with his ability to move the puck into the offensive zone — it’s just not a player who fits at the top of the lineup barring further growth.
The only forward who does on this team at this point in time is Oliver Bjorkstrand, though even his total utility is worth questioning after last season. Bjorkstrand was a fancy stats favorite after 2019-20 where he scored 36 points in 49 games and had elite underlying numbers, but he saw a dip in that latter fact a year later. Bjorkstrand was worth 3.6 wins per 82 games according to GSVA thanks to his play-driving ability with a 58 percent expected goals rate, but that turned out to be an illusion. Look back through his impact on expected goals over the past five seasons and it’s 2019-20’s plus-0.66 that sticks out. That ranked fifth in the league that year, but in every other he’s been much closer to average. Last year he was a bit below.
What wasn’t a flash in the pan was his scoring ability which is part of the reason his impact on actual goals has always been positive and better than expected. Aside from one offseason in 2017-18, Bjorkstrand has consistently scored at a first-line rate at five-on-five. Over the last three seasons his points-per-60 is 2.13, 2.25 and then 2.36 last season, a mark that ranked 45th in the league. Combined, he ranks 34th over the last three seasons thanks to his consistency and it’s because of his goal-scoring ability, routinely scoring more than one goal-per-60.
He’s the team’s most efficient scorer, but it’s likely that being thrust into a bigger role is what limited his play-driving ability. He needs help, and there isn’t much of it on this team. Columbus’s top line is slated to be the league’s worst.
The team swapped Cam Atkinson for Jakub Voracek, essentially replacing a pure shooter with a pure playmaker. That’s a much-needed change for a Columbus team that didn’t have many strong passing threats, especially if the team wants to get the most out of Laine. That was probably the idea with acquiring Max Domi last season and the three are slated to play together once Domi becomes healthy. Offensively, it’ll be an extremely interesting trio for the talent and creativity available, but defensively it may be an utter trainwreck. Laine is well known for his defensive inability, but Voracek is no prize in his own zone in recent years either and the same goes for Domi. All three can create, but they’ll need a full commitment to defensive play to have those opportunities. I’m not sure any of the three are capable at this stage of their careers. Voracek should, at the very least, help the power play, particularly feeding Laine, but at five-on-five his contributions will likely be one-dimensional.
On the third line is Columbus’s only other top-six caliber forward, Gustav Nyquist, and even that may be a stretch. He missed all of last season with injury, is 32 years old, and had a tough first season with the Blue Jackets in 2019-20. That he’s apparently slated to play with Cole Sillinger, this summer’s No. 12 pick, was a surprise to me, but if that is indeed happening it speaks to the team’s lack of forward depth, especially down the middle. Domi, who has already tried and failed at center countless times, is somehow back there again and the team’s next best option is Sean Kuraly, a fourth-line center at best signed in free agency.
What helps Columbus more than other bottom feeders is that there really isn’t anyone hurting the team and offering huge negative value (Kuraly is likely better than given credit for here). The Blue Jackets have guys that can contribute across the lineup, even Emil Bemstrom outside the lineup, but that’s all they really are: Guys. The two best players, Bjorkstrand and Voracek, aren’t top of the lineup guys on a playoff team and the team’s lone star, Laine, is incredibly flawed to the point his value is pretty marginal.
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Columbus is essentially missing an entire top line and finding that won’t come via band-aid solutions. It’s going to be a process, one that starts at the bottom in order to find prospects who can hopefully one day grow to become elite forward talents. That’s long been an issue in Columbus, but starting from scratch should put the team on the right track.
The Blue Jackets are where they need to be towards that goal, but it means the 2021-22 season likely won’t be a pleasant one to sit through. In a very crowded Metropolitan division there’s only one near certainty and it’s that this team doesn’t belong with the rest. It’s not difficult to see why.
References
How these projections work
How these projections performed last season
Understanding projection uncertainty
Resources
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
Read the other 2021-22 season previews here.
(Top photo of Zach Werenski: Jamie Sabau / NHLI via Getty Images)
