Columbus Blue Jackets: ESPN Power Rankings get a Star Wars Spin

Columbus Blue Jackets and Star Wars. What’s not to love?

So last night I missed my first Columbus Blue Jackets game this year to go see the newest hit, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The movie was absolutely beautifully done and had some great character development that left me excited for the last movie in this trilogy.

As I was roving the internet this morning reading everything about the movie, I came across an article by Greg Wyshynski and Emily Kaplan of ESPN.com that was just a fun spin on the NHL and Star Wars. They took the time to connect every team in the NHL to a character from the Star Wars universe.

Some of the tie-ins were super simple for the writer such as the San Jose Sharks. When someone calls one of your best players, Brent Burns, Chewbacca it writes itself. Others were more thoughtful, and in the case of Dallas, brutal.

I would like to mention that this list is in order of rankings at the time of writing and I am in love with the fact that I barely even have to scroll to find us. When I started following the Jackets it was pretty easy to find them on lists but took a bit more time. You just had to scroll to the bottom and we would switch places with Arizona and Florida for last.

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The ESPN list puts the Columbus Blue Jackets as the new rebel addition, Finn, and says “ Despite being legit championship contenders, the Blue Jackets still have their doubters. But once people get over their preconceptions — and over themselves — perhaps they can see how totally awesome this could be. As Finn showed, it doesn’t always take a Jedi to wield a lightsaber.”

That could not be more fun to read. Columbus has had the “underdog” mentality for a few years now and people are starting to show some signs of faith outside of Ohio. We have the heart to show that we are here to stay and our play this year has shown that.

The Evil Empire

Another fun ranking was the coverage of the Pittsburgh Penguins. I had to scroll down quite a bit to find them but I ended up finding them at #18. It is just fun to see them in the second half of the list even though the Penns were deemed to be the Death Star.  It makes sense when you think about it.

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After winning two championships in a row they are kind of the beast of the NHL. Sidney Crosby, Matt Murray, Evgeni Malkin, and Phil Kessel (I feel like they missed a Kessel Run joke there but they made it in another ranking) are some of the largest weapons on the ice. If they were in the Star Wars universe all of these weapons would be housed inside the massive Death Star.

The correlation, and fun in my opinion, doesn’t end there. After floating around and destroying everything in their path, the Death Star turned out to have a major weakness. There was a pretty major exhaust port in the depth at goalie. Once Murray went down, so did the ship. Despite having all of the power houses on board the Death Star the team has been blown wide open with a 16-13-3 start.

Next: Check out the ESPN Star Wars NHL rankings here

There is a lot of fun to be had in the article and I think that it is definitely worth a read. Check out the link and make sure to keep coming back as we cover our home team, the Columbus Blue Jackets, at UnionandBlue.com