Columbus Blue Jackets: 4th Liners Missing Opportunity

The Columbus Blue Jackets rash of injuries is leading to opportunities for some AHLers. Opportunities they aren’t taking advantage of.

With three of the Columbus Blue Jackets top forwards out, there has been a huge opening for some AHLers to prove that they belong in the big leagues. With Cam Atkinson, Brandon Dubinsky, and Alexander Wennberg all missing substantial time has led to a whole line of guys getting the call up from the minors.

The Jackets fourth line of Tyler Motte – Jordan Schroeder – Markus Hannikainen have not taken advantage of the playing time they have got. To their defense, playing time has been low, but they haven’t shown enough in their minutes to garner more.

Schroeder, the veteran of the bunch, is pointless this season in 14 games. To make matters worse he is -5, including being on the ice for three of Ottawa’s goals in their comeback win in late December. He hasn’t even had a shot on goal in the last two games.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Motte and Markus

Motte has seen his ice time dwindle since starting the year off with three points in six games. He is averaging about 8:30 ice time in his last nine games and hasn’t scored since late November. The 22-year-old acquired in the Artemi Panarin – Brandon Saad trade was a great pick up for the Jackets considering he was essentially swapped for a backup goalie we were not going to use. Motte hasn’t lived up to any level of expectation folks had for him, including myself.

Although he hasn’t been as bad defensively as Schroeder, he hasn’t shown the skill and tenacity that we saw in the first ten games of the season. I am much more confident that Motte can bounce back and play at a fourth line level. A light January will be good for his legs and mindset.

Finally, we arrive at Markus Hannaikainen. O, Markus. You by far show the highest ceiling out of the group. In my eyes he is the best forechecker and shows the most skill on the offensive end.

Unfortunately for Hannaikainen, he has the lowest offensive starting percentage of any player on the team. By a lot. He is only starting his shifts in the offensive end 38% of the time. Putting an offensive player in this situation is going to lead to less than fruitful production. Understandably a fourth line player isn’t going to get the greatest deployment but Hannaikainen deserves better than this.

This fourth line likely only has the month of January left to prove themselves. Thats only eight more games.

And according to Alison Lukan of The Athletic, Dubinsky seems close to a return.

That is one less forward spot for one of these guys to get NHL playing time. Only a few more opportunities for Schroeder, Motte, or Hannakianen to step up.