Jackets Preparing for Tough Month of December

After a home heavy November schedule, the Blue Jackets are now gearing up to a busy month of December that mixes in some road trips, with many of their games against superior competition. They’ll play 15 games in 30 days this month, kicking things off with a trip to Winnipeg tomorrow night.

As of the end of November, the Blue Jackets have played 21 games, with 15 of those being home games. Now, we have to remove one of those because of the Finland trip – but still, the team has played 14 games at Nationwide Arena to start the season, as opposed to just 6 on the road. At some point, they will have to pay the piper.

That doesn’t quite begin this month, as they’ll have 8 of their 15 December games on the road. But, they’re coming up against some serious competition – 9 of these games will be against teams currently in playoff positions. The other 6 won’t be easy either – they play a vastly improved Buffalo Sabres team twice, and the high flying Florida Panthers on the road as well.

With so many games crammed into such a short number of days, we have to hope that some of the injured players begin to make their way back into the lineup. It looks like Patrik Laine and Elvis Merzlikins are close, and that’s a great start. But the team will still be without four of its defensemen, and two important forwards.

Adam Boqvist and Nick Blankenburg should be back fairly soon, but the team has been mum on Jake Bean and Jakub Voracek. We won’t see Justin Danforth until at least the final weeks of the season; while we know Zach Werenski is done for the year.

In short, this December stretch may tell the full tale of how this season will go for the team. If they can start seeing signs of health and the team keeps clicking the way it has, there’s a legitimate chance that they could work their way up the standings. Or, they can continue to struggle to keep a consistent lineup on the ice – at which point, they will almost certainly struggle against so many strong teams.

By the end of the month, we’ll either be locked into the Connor Bedard sweepstakes, or we’ll have had an exciting month filled with surprise wins. It’s a no lose situation, when you look at it from that perspective. Most importantly, we should be looking for consistency from this team. They’re no longer losing games by wide margins, and have been much better at defending over the last couple of weeks.

Should players return and this play reverts back to the bottom, I think we’ll start seeing some tough decisions made within the roster. For example, if Boqvist returns but can’t get consistent ice time with so many AHL players around, is it time to move on from him? These are the storylines we can look forward to, regardless the results on the ice. Buckle up, it’s about to get busy.