32 Thoughts: What's next for the Blue Jackets?

• Refreshed Flames back with positive mindset
• Carolina's AHL affiliate problem
• Taking stock of the league as training camps set to open

“There is a reason,” said one NHL owner, “that I’m a control freak.”

This was hours after Mike Babcock resigned as Columbus’s head coach. The McConnell family, owners of the Blue Jackets since their inception, has an excellent reputation in hockey circles. During his years at Sportsnet, Doug MacLean repeatedly said great things about working for them. That hasn’t changed, even as the leadership did.

They hired people, and allowed them to make decisions. Now, as the mushroom cloud around Columbus dissipates, it's one of the many unanswered questions: Will the McConnells change the way they oversee the Blue Jackets?

“Our ownership group is deeply frustrated and disappointed by the events of the past week,” Monday’s statement from ownership read. “We do not anticipate further changes to our hockey leadership team at this time. Additional disruptions would be detrimental to our players and coaches as they prepare for the opening of training camp in two days.”

The words “at this time,” jumped off our screens. Everyone knows what that means.

Truth is, the Blue Jackets’ front office was already on notice. That’s why they hired Babcock, gambling his hockey mind could push them into the playoff race, solidifying job security. A strong season is essential for them. Babcock’s resignation doesn’t change the need for positive results. What it might change, however, is how ownership feels about the people in charge of the organization on a personal level, and how it might need to run the team in the future. 

That isn’t the only thing we’re left wondering. 

GM Jarmo Kekalainen apologized to the players on Monday morning. But there are many theories about what this will mean inside the Blue Jackets’ room. We know what was said publicly, but by the time the team met with the NHLPA on Thursday, the players made it very clear there had to be change. Will that be enough to smooth over any previous comments? 

I haven’t played on a professional sports team, but I have worked in highly charged workplace environments where emotional times caused cracks. There are a lot of ways it can go. Some move on quick. Others have long memories and don’t let go. You find out if you can still be a team. And, if that’s possible, group success heals a lot of wounds. A rising tide floats all boats. 

Finally, I wonder about those who crave a second chance. Babcock’s situation isn’t analogous to many others, but there are plenty of players, coaches, executives, etc., who will be looking for an opportunity to right a wrong, fix a mistake, redeem themselves. Will this experience scare off people who make those hires? Scare off those who own teams? The Blue Jackets were embarrassed. No one wants to sit where Kekalainen and John Davidson did this week. 

32 THOUGHTS

1. There are a lot of people rooting for Pascal Vincent. He’s been very, very close to an NHL head job before. Babcock initially got it in Columbus over him, and the Rangers took a long look, too. These are far from ideal conditions for your big break, but when life throws an opportunity, you better seize it.

The biggest challenge in his situation is moving from an assistant to top spot on the same team. It’s not easy going from good cop to bad cop; players see through phoniness. That goes double in Columbus, where, one of the reasons the Blue Jackets hired Babcock is the organization felt the team lacked discipline. The best thing for Vincent is there’s no time to overthink. No time to do anything but step in and coach — which is what he does best. 

2. This also makes me wonder about two-time AHL Coach of the Year Mitch Love. Now on Spencer Carbery’s bench in Washington, at least five teams asked to talk to him after Calgary elevated Ryan Huska to the number one spot. Maybe 2024 is The Summer of Love.

3. Mike Andlauer said at the Senators’ golf tournament on Tuesday that he’s hoping his purchase is completed by the end of the week. He’s been fully informed about any business, but we’ll see if his official arrival ends the Shane Pinto logjam. Pinto wants to stay in Ottawa and the Senators wish to keep him. I believe Philadelphia offered to take an additional contract (Mathieu Joseph?) in a potential Pinto deal to ease Ottawa’s cap concerns, but I’m not convinced the Senators’ heart is in jettisoning the talented young centre.

In addition to Pinto, the cap-tight team needs space for another forward or two — whether it is Ridly Greig making the full-time jump, Josh Bailey turning his PTO into a guarantee or something else. Market value has Pinto at around $2.5M, but without offer-sheet or arbitration leverage, the Senators hold the hammer. Who budges in order to get this done? 

4. Other RFAs: Calen Addison didn’t have the leverage, taking a one-year, $825,000 offer. Minnesota is extremely tight to the cap. Addison is still working to establish himself, so the Wild drew a hard line. He will have arbitration rights next summer, so things start to swing his way with a strong season. One agent laughed that he was surprised Filip Gustavsson’s case didn’t end up in arbitration, “because Bill Guerin loves to argue.” 

5. Anaheim’s the most interesting. The Ducks are in a long rebuild, with $15M in cap space. But when they are ready to charge up the standings, Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras should be important pieces. I don’t believe management should simply dump a wagon-full of cash at their front doors, but I do wonder about the end goal.

All indications are Zegras will end up with a bridge deal, and it sounds similar for Drysdale. (The defenceman is in a tough spot because his shoulder injury cost him a year towards arbitration, so the Ducks really have the hammer.) With new coach Greg Cronin, GM Pat Verbeek is trying to establish his culture. Unless the asks are completely unreasonable, I’d want them in camp right away, instead of risking hard feelings. Zegras, in particular, is a verbal handful, not afraid to say exactly what he thinks. 

6. Jeff Marek made a great point: that Troy Terry was ready to walk into arbitration before Anaheim presented the seven-year, $49M contract he signed. Deadlines spur action, but there’s nothing hard-and-fast in September like that. Terry said an icebreaker occurred the night before his scheduled hearing, when he, agent Kurt Overhardt, Verbeek and Ducks assistant GM Jeff Solomon (one of the toughest negotiators around) went to dinner. There was one rule: no contract discussions.

“Let us be humans with each other,” Terry said. “It was actually a great night.” Was it awkward? “I thought it was going to be, but it wasn’t.” The next morning, Terry was ready for a verbal skirmish. “Probably around eight or nine am, it became pretty evident we might be able to get something done…I make dumb jokes all the time whenever I’m talking and they told me, ‘Don’t make jokes to (the arbitrator),’” Terry laughed. “The moment the seven-by-seven got offered, I knew that was when we were going to sign.” So, we all wait to see where the icebreaker comes here.

7. The best news is Terry’s son Grayson was born happy and healthy after Troy missed several road games late in the season while wife Dani was pregnant. When will he start showing Grayson his 2017 World Juniors shootout highlights? Terry scored three times against Russia in the semifinal and the gold-medal winner to beat Canada in the final. “I’ll probably show it to him pretty early,” he said. “That was something that was so cool to me, and I hope he finds it cool, too.”

8. There is a chance some conversations and potential outcomes changed over the summer. One example is Calgary, where many of the Flames who departed frustrated and unhappy in April cooled down and returned to Alberta with positive mindsets — featuring a player-created pre-camp golf day that got social media run. That doesn’t mean negotiations will be easy, but it is noticeable among the players and organization how much better everyone seems to feel. I do think the Flames will re-engage with several potential UFAs. Tarot cards indicate Mikael Backlund and Elias Lindholm are probably the first attempts. We will see where things go. Colorado took a run at Backlund, before landing Ross Colton and Ryan Johansen.

9. I think William Nylander plays this season as a Toronto Maple Leaf, unsigned or not. (And it doesn’t sound like there’ve been any recent discussions.) I also believe the team will consider deploying him at centre from time to time. It’s been discussed.  

10. At the NHL/NHLPA media tour in Las Vegas, Jack Eichel said the difference between Edmonton and Vegas in that second-round series was depth. Leon Draisaitl conceded that, but added, “We couldn’t get to our top game…They didn’t make those little mistakes we made and that was the difference.”

ESPN does an on-ice segment with Blake Bolden at the tour, and Draisaitl was in excellent form, just firing the puck. With two years remaining on his current contract, there are already questions about his future, which he laughed off with an admittedly cliche answer. What is true, though, is that the Oilers, led by Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, really believe they can win it all. That, more than anything else, is the best recruiter.

“Fair statement,” he admitted. “We want to win so badly, we talk about it over and over again. But our whole organization wants to win, and that’s the feeling I love the most. Everyone that’s around, the feeling that we have is winning. It will be really, really hard to win next season. But I got all the belief and all the trust in our organization as a whole that we can get it done. And I get the same feeling from everyone in our organization, and that’s a great feeling to have and that’s the best starting point you can have to start a year.” 

11. Draisaitl had a hilarious line when asked about his father, Peter (a great player in his own right) coming to visit this year. He can’t always make it during the season, but the two really enjoy those times when they occur. Does Leon play better when Peter is around? “I seem to be playing okay when he’s not around.”

12. Vancouver trading Tanner Pearson to Montreal is the best thing for everyone involved, including the player. There were a lot of hard feelings in the aftermath of the multi-surgery mayhem that put his career into uncertainty and cast doubt on the Canucks medical staff. It’s great to see him looking healthy enough to play. When the summer began Vancouver wasn’t expecting him to be ready so they made other moves, but Pearson's potential return would have caused a salary-cap and positional logjam for the Canucks. One of the things they could have considered was putting Pearson on waivers. That wouldn’t have been good for anyone.

13. The trade also solved a Montreal problem. DeSmith joined Jake Allen, Samuel Montembeault and Cayden Primeau as Canadiens’ goalies ready to play and needing waivers. Ever since the trade with Pittsburgh, the Canadiens were working to move DeSmith. 

14. Carolina did give some permission for teams to talk to UFA-to-be Brett Pesce during the offseason, but that’s evaporated. The Hurricanes are in it to win it, and they’re better with Pesce around. We’ll see if the contract gap can be bridged along the way. 

15. The NHL and AHL are trying to sort out Carolina’s affiliate issue. Following a divorce with the Chicago Wolves, the Hurricanes are sprinkling prospects around the hockey world. “It’s not a sustainable situation going forward,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said last week. “Obviously, it’s going to be the reality this year and Carolina’s going to have to deal with it. But it’s not a status quo we can allow to continue.”

In August, Carolina offered to purchase/add a 33rd franchise. The AHL’s Executive Committee met a couple times to consider it, and recommended the Hurricanes be allowed to address the full Board of Governors in October. That way, every team will understand everything there is to know. There are some adamantly against the idea of an NHL/AHL imbalance. Also: the AHL’s two most recent adds — Henderson (Las Vegas) and Coachella Valley (Seattle) had an expansion fee above $10M. Will Carolina be willing to go there?

16. Las Vegas was supposed to host both the 2024 NHL Awards and the Draft (as Nashville did last June), but the latter is in jeopardy. There is an event scheduled for T-Mobile Arena the following weekend that owns some contractual flexibility on its dates, and doesn’t want its original spot of July 4. So it may move up a week, which would push the draft elsewhere.

My solution? The NHL has brainstormed a DisneyWorld draft in the past, and that would be an awesome sight. DisneyLand is closer. Macklin Celebrini pops out from Space Mountain; Cole Eiserman emerges from Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Imagine the possibilities. The league would look fun.

17. Not exactly sure what it’s going to look like, but both the NHL and NHLPA are intent on a February 2025 international hockey event. The lack of high-level international hockey hurts, and everyone sees it. There’s a desire to play some games overseas, but not sure it’s going to be possible. There’s also a desire to find a fresh way of presenting or doing the competition.

Sidney Crosby, asked who will play wing on a line with Connor McDavid, said, “I’ll go there.” When told he was supposed to say McDavid will move, Crosby replied, “I’ve skated with him, I’ve played both. I think I’m good either way. He can carry the mail.” Two years ago, Crosby skated on a line with McDavid at the BioSteel camp so the two could get to know each other prior to the aborted 2022 Olympic participation. 

18. One Penguin said he’d never seen Crosby as pissed off as he was at the end of last season. “It was such a struggle for us to find consistency,” the captain said, when asked about it. “I’ve been in a situation where we’ve been first all year and you just ride that into the playoffs. (When) we won in 2016, we were out of the playoffs and went on a great run, had momentum going in, just caught fire. This was a new situation for us. We were chasing it from early on, but we had put ourselves in a spot to get in. It wasn’t a miracle we needed. We needed to win our last two games. To go through all that, all the ups and downs, and to be in a position to get in and not be able to find a way — that’s something we had done in the past, and we didn’t do it this time.” Pittsburgh suffered a pair of stunning losses in their 81st and 82nd games, 5-2 at home to Chicago and 3-2 in Columbus. 

19. Buffalo’s Matt Savoie suffered a shoulder injury during a prospect game Monday against Pittsburgh and is expected to miss some of the Sabres’ main training camp. While the OHL, the AHL and the NHL reached a gentlemen’s agreement to allow Shane Wright to go to Coachella Valley if he does not make Seattle, no such allowance is expected for Savoie, the ninth overall pick in the 2022 draft.

Wright was one game shy of automatically being eligible for the AHL, and everyone involved wisely found a solution since the OHL did not have a season in 2021. (Savoie’s actually played more CHL games than Wright and missed the age exemption by one puny day.) All of that said, I wonder if the Sabres follow what the Kraken did with Wright last season. Instead of sending Savoie back to the WHL, they keep him in Buffalo for a while, then to the AHL for conditioning, followed by Team Canada for the World Juniors. 

20. Good question in the aftermath of Jake Sanderson’s eight-year, $64.4M extension in Ottawa: how many other players have signed such a large contract after 77 NHL games? The closest comparables are Minnesotans Matt Boldy (seven years, $49M after 89 games) and Kirill Kaprizov (five years, $45M after 55 games). My opinion is that if you feel someone is a cornerstone player, sign them for as long as you can because the price rarely goes down. The unique thing about Sanderson's case is he doesn’t have high counting stats (although that will probably change), so this truly is a precedent-setter. 

21. One exec who watched Connor Bedard’s prospect-game-debut hat trick: “Whatever the betting sites are setting as his over-under (for goals) — I’m taking the over.”

22. At the media tour, Colby Armstrong put Bedard against Crosby in two on-ice competitions. I won’t spoil it. “The competition he thought I’d win, he won and the one I thought he’d win, I won,” Bedard said. Looking forward to seeing it.

On the trip to Vegas, a gentleman named Ron or Rob (I’m sorry I can’t remember, so embarrassing) told a story about Bedard I had to check. Apparently, at one of his minor hockey games, Bedard forgot his elbow and shin pads. The father of another player happened to have his own equipment on-hand, so Bedard borrowed it — and scored four goals in the first 10 minutes. Is this true? “Some of it,” he laughed. “The four goals is definitely an exaggeration. I was 12 years old and it was playoffs in our league. I got to the rink and, it was actually my jock and my elbow pads.” (Just, yuck.) “So I borrowed his and then I was getting dressed…putting on my pants and there was my jock and my elbow pads (inside my pants). So I got to take his jock off and put on my own.”

Bedard’s coach had a rule: any player who forgot a piece of equipment was benched for the first 10 minutes. No exceptions, even for Bedard (and that’s the way he’d want it.) “I had already told my coach, and then I ran to him, ‘I don’t have to miss 10 minutes, I found my gear.’” The kid was ready to play in an adult’s jock to win a playoff game. As Jim Hughson would say: That’s Hockey!

23. Robert Thomas is the newest Adam Oates apprentice. Brayden Schenn and Matthew Tkachuk convinced him to seek the new sensei as the St. Louis forward worked to improve his shot.

“I feel like that’ll open up more passing lanes,” Thomas said. “I feel like guys are starting to pick up (that) I’m always looking to pass…if I’m able to add that shot, the passing will be a lot easier… A lot of things he teaches are so simple and so small that you would never think of. Whether it's stick positioning or your forehand grip/backhand grip, there’s so many things that you just do naturally, but you don’t know why you do them. He’ll show you 10 clips in a game…Why did you do this? I thought it was just a whole other way to think the game.”

Thomas watched video of McDavid shooting to mimic the quickness, how McDavid beats the goalie before the goalie is ready. Did Oates try to change Thomas’s stick? No but, “He hates my curve.”

24. Don’t think Thomas was surprised Brayden Schenn became St. Louis’s captain. Asked if anyone with the Blues brought up the possibility of him taking the reins, he replied, “No, to be honest.” We were the only ones who asked? “First time hearing about it.”

Thomas, who was named an alternate captain Tuesday, had some good insight discussing his minor public skirmish with Craig Berube where the forward defended the team during a radio interview the morning after the frustrated coach wondered if poor play was because some of the Blues' best players “don’t care about the team.”

“We both gained some respect for each other,” he said of Berube. Do you think it was a test? “Maybe. I don’t know. I think there could have been a test in there, but at the end of the day, I felt it was right to stick up for our guys.” Prior to 2022-23, the last time the Blues missed the playoffs they recovered by winning the Stanley Cup (2019). Thomas said he spent the summer focusing on creating a sequel.  

25. Back when I covered some golf, I used to love hearing the players recount their bogeys and birdies. Perfect memories. They knew what they hit every hole, what went right, what went wrong. To me, it was mesmerizing. Talking to Jack Hughes, it appears he has that gift.

“If you ask me every single play from the season, no (I can’t remember),” he said. “I can remember pretty much all my goals, and a good chunk of points I’d say.” Asked his favourite play, he came up with this one against Philadelphia.

“My favourite part about the goal is my footwork when I score. I don’t just stickhandle with my hands (but) with my feet, too. That’s been something I’ve been working on for years…shifting my weight, so the goalie moves and when I go on my backhand, he thinks I’m going backhand. But I bring it back to my forehand, and I’ve pretty much the whole blocker side just from the way my feet are moving. It’s almost like stickhandling with your feet instead of your hands.” Elite IQ.

26. Hughes didn’t say much after New Jersey’s playoffs ended with a five-game second-round loss to Carolina. But he was far from healthy for the last game. “Yeah, I didn’t think I was going to play,” he admitted. “But I’m a hockey player. You go in the room, you get shot up. What are you going to do in front of the boys? They look at you. You’re gonna say no? That’s all I had to give, with my final game…Would’ve been tough for a Game 6.” It was a bad shoulder. “Definitely no golfing for a month after.” The positives: he’s healthy now and the Hughes brothers had a fantastic summer, with Luke playing something like 350 games on their new pool table.

27. One player who studied Hughes: Carolina’s Seth Jarvis, who worked on skating more with his head up. “I like to use my speed,” he said. “I like to skate a million miles an hour, but being able to change it up and not have to skate as hard — add a little more deceptive skating — I think you see guys like (Jack), who kind of float through the zone, they’re not always going as fast as they can, they kind of turn it on and beat guys…It’s been so embedded in me, just skate as hard as you can, whenever. It’s been a challenge (to try and change), but it’s been fun.”

He’s also stealing a page from teammate Sebastian Aho’s playbook. “He doesn’t stickhandle as much as people think he does. It’s just carrying the puck and knocking sticks away. That was something I really focused on, being able to go through traffic and not try to dangle everybody. Just place pucks, knock sticks and be able to manoeuvre my way without having to overcomplicate it.”

Third adjustment was listening to Jordan Staal, who couldn’t believe how little Jarvis changed his skates. “I loved using skates until they broke off my feet…they were worn in like sneakers. (Staal) would give me the hardest time, because he switches skates every two weeks.” As a bigger guy, Staal needs to, but Jarvis eventually relented. “That was a tough one for me, because I liked wearing them until you could see the toe cap coming off.”

28. It was fun to talk to Jarvis, a confident young man who feels that he’s hitting his physical stride. “Maybe late puberty,” he laughed. “I can grow a little scruffy beard now.” His diet changed, cutting out the Nerds gummy clusters (“I have a wicked sweet tooth”) and trying intermittent fasting. No eating past 8 pm, and not eating again until 12:30-1pm the next day.

“Big meal, little snack, big meal, go to bed.” Drink a lot of water in the morning. The first week was tough, but “after getting through it I never felt better.” He will see how he needs to adjust that in-season. One piece of advice Jarvis didn’t follow was visiting Brent Burns’ ranch. “He shot me a few texts trying to get me to go down there. Once I heard (you had to wear) snake boots whenever we were outside the house, I was like ‘Nah, you’re probably not going to sell me on that one.’ Maybe next summer I’ll grow over my fear.” 

29. I don’t care that he’s still playing for his hometown Kladno Knights. I’d love to see the Hockey Hall of Fame put Jaromir Jagr in now. He’s trying to keep the team alive.

30. Garry Monahan, Clifton McNeeley, Jay Berwanger, Rick Monday, Dena Head and now Taylor Heise. The answers to trivia questions, forever in the history books as first-ever draft picks in the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB, WNBA and now the PWHL. (Forty-two years later, I can still see Monday homering off Steve Rogers. That sucked.)

31. I’ll miss working with Anthony Stewart, who is making — and will continue to make — an enormous impact on hockey. You see the social-media GIFs, which are fantastic, but, off-air, he is the funniest person I’ve ever worked with, and it’s not close. Whenever there was a scramble around a goalie, he would yell, “It’s in the net! It’s in the net!” He told us he would do that on-ice when he played, until referees told him to cut it out because it distracted them. It’s going to be a lot quieter, unfortunately. 

32. Last week’s Bruce Oake Recovery Centre gala in Winnipeg raised almost $300,000 for the facility, and even more success is coming. Scott Oake used the occasion to announce plans for the Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre. Bruce Oake died of an accidental overdose at age 25 in 2011. Parents Scott and Anne, and brother Darcy pushed hard (and received great support) for an addiction treatment facility in their city, which opened in 2021. Sadly, Anne passed away that year, but Scott always saw the need for a place dedicated to women and their children. Half the Jets’ players were in attendance at the event — including Adam Lowry, named captain earlier that day — along with the entire front office. For more information, check here: https://www.bruceoakerecoverycentre.ca/. Incredible community work.