5 Columbus Blue Jackets who need to turn things around

4. Boone Jenner

This summer, the Columbus Blue Jackets signed Boone Jenner to a four-year deal worth $3.75 million annually. To say he’s coming off a disappointing season would be an understatement. In 2015-16, at the age of 22, Jenner scored 30 goals. Even with a 13.8 shooting percentage, he converted on over 10 percent of his shots in each of his first three seasons.

Since then, Jenner’s numbers have been declining. His goals have gone down from 30 to 18 in 2016-17 to 13 in 2017-18. As far as points, Jenner has gone from 49 to 34 in 2016-17 to 32 in 2017-18. He is far too young for us to blame age for the decline. And Jenner played more minutes in 2017-18 than he did in 2015-16. So playing time obviously isn’t the issue, either. What’s causing it?

That’s the $64,000 question for the Blue Jackets. Columbus is hoping Jenner can get back to being productive. Looking at his numbers, he isn’t getting ideal deployment, as he’s being used in primarily a defensive role. Jenner’s clearly not having much success in it, as he was among the Blue Jackets’ worst possession players last season.

Tortorella needs to get him his confidence back because it’s clear he doesn’t have much when he’s shooting the puck. Every player goes through these stretches, though two years is a bit too long. If Jenner can be a strong top-nine scorer for them, that should help them address their scoring depth issues.