The Columbus Blue Jackets took a gamble going all-in this season, rather than hoping for the future and despite the struggles to this point, it was the right move.
The Columbus Blue Jackets and general manager Jarmo Kekalainen have been getting quite a bit of negativity around the league due to their recent performances since the trade deadline. However, it still has only been five games since the deadline.
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The Jackets haven’t looked great, everyone will agree with that, however but when a team makes wholesale changes at the deadline it will take a few games for everything to mesh together. The biggest issue is currently that the team seemingly doesn’t have time to do so, as a result of the tight playoff race in the east.
The Carolina Hurricanes are on fire as well, which isn’t helping the Blue Jackets’ chances going forward, however they’ll have to cool down eventually. The Jackets need a win against Pittsburgh later this week, otherwise making the playoffs will seemingly be pointless anyway considering they can’t beat the best teams.
Going forward, the Jackets need to take advantage of facing teams like the Edmonton Oilers and Sergei Bobrovsky needs to be on top of his game going forward. However he’s not entirely to blame for the poor run of form of course, the team needs to start scoring as well.
Jarmo Kekalainen did everything he could to put the team in a situation to win and if they don’t, then it’ll be tough going forward however with the current situation the team is in he couldn’t afford to be passive at the trade deadline.
Things may look bad right now given the performances by the new players, but once they have time to settle in, then things should be fine later this season. If not, it’s certainly not due to a lack of talent.