Columbus Blue Jackets Making a Mess of Their Forward Lines

Columbus Blue Jackets Are Making a Mess of Their of Forward Lines, Burying Quality Talent in a Limited 4th Line Role. John Tortorella’s Attempt to Spread out His Scoring Might Have Worked on Friday Night, but It Can’t Have Sustained Success.

Currently sitting last in the Metropolitan Division with a record of 1-2-0, the Columbus Blue Jackets are once again off to a slow start. They dropped their first two games against Boston and San Jose before collecting their first win against Chicago on Friday night.

Moving forward, Columbus starts a tough road trip on Saturday night when they head to Texas to take on the Dallas Stars. The road trip then travels through California from Tuesday through Friday to take on Los Angeles, San Jose, and Anaheim. This is typically a stretch of games that Eastern Conference teams fail to accumulate many points on. Sure, Sergei Bobrovsky might be able to steal a win or two the way he did against Chicago, but even 35 saves on 37 shots weren’t enough to knock off the Sharks in their second game.

More Offense Needed

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What the Columbus Blue Jackets need is a lot more offense. Even teams like Edmonton and Ottawa are managing to rack up wins by simply outscoring their opponents.

Columbus doesn’t even need to score upwards of 5-6 goals like the Sens or Oilers due to mediocre goaltending, they just need an extra goal or two to give them a chance to at least collect one point.

Questions on the Blue Line

Columbus was expecting to get a boost on the back end Friday night with the return of Ryan Murray. Unfortunately, he left the game after sustaining an upper-body injury, having logged just 4:38 seconds worth of ice-time. His status moving forward is uncertain, but we know he will miss the upcoming road trip.

Luckily, the Blue Jackets should continue to receive a spark from rookie defenseman Zach Werenski, who had a goal and an assist in the win vs. Chicago. Don’t be surprised if he sticks with Seth Jones on that top pairing until Murray returns.

Tortorella Making a Mess of Forward Lines

After dropping their season opener 6-3 to the Bruins, John Tortorella made significant changes up front.

Boone Jenner had a rough night with a -4 plus/minus rating over 17:31 seconds of ice-time. That number dropped to 15:15 against San Jose in game two. By the time Friday night’s match-up rolled around, Jenner was demoted to the 4th line playing just 8:10.

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Calder Cup MVP Oliver Bjorkstrand played 14:34 in the season opener and also had a quiet night with a -1 plus/minus rating and one shot. His ice-time also began to drop in the second game having only played 9:58, but it would have been higher if he hadn’t taken a four-minute high-sticking penalty. Similar to Jenner, Bjorkstrand eventually earned himself a 4th line demotion.

On Friday, Boone Jenner and Oliver Bjorkstrand assumed 4th line wing duties with rookie Lukas Sedlak making his NHL debut. Sedlak led the three in ice-time at 8:45, Jenner with 8:10, and Bjorkstrand with a team-low 8:01 (if you don’t include Murray leaving early).

Here’s the confusing part. Apparently neither player can be trusted to play more minutes, but both are good enough to be on the man advantage. In fact, Oliver Bjorkstrand was on the first unit that now ranks 1st in the NHL at 57.1 percent efficiency. Jenner is on the second unit, and although all four PP goals were scored by the top unit, it speaks volumes that he’s playing 53 seconds/game on the power play.

Instill Confidence in These Players

This isn’t the time for old school John Tortorella tactics. Punishing players by demoting them and limiting ice-time does little to help the team or player. If you’re going to put Bonne Jenner and Oliver Bjorkstrand in a limited 4th line role, you mid as well send Bjorkstrand down to Cleveland. Although that makes little sense since he’s proven there’s not a whole lot more he can do down there. Update: Apparently in the middle of writing this, it seems Columbus has sent Oliver Bjorkstrand down to the AHL, recalling Sonny Milano.

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No. The answer is actually very simple. You instill confidence in these young players by continually throwing in the fire, not cutting down their ice-time and hindering their development. Both Jenner and Bjorkstrand have top-six skill-sets that do very little use buried in a limited role.

If Columbus wants to see Bonne Jenner repeat his 30-goal performance from a year ago, or watch Oliver Bjorkstrand return to challenge with Zach Werenski among Calder Trophy nominees, serious changes will need to be made going forward. Having players such as Matt Calvert on the top line is not a recipe for sustained long-term success.