A big part of the reason the Blue Jackets could not take a step forward this year, was the diminished production from center Sean Monahan. The big pivot struggled to get his offense going in his second season in Columbus.
While Monahan's first campaign in Central Ohio was cut short due to a wrist injury; his play was nothing short of magical. He scored 19 goals and 57 points in just 54 games, carrying a +19 rating while averaging more than 19 minutes per game.
After forging ahead through unimaginable circumstances, he was awarded the Masterton Trophy for perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. He was an inspiration to everyone in the hockey world.
Unfortunately, this year just never really got going for Monny. He was sluggish out of the gate, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that he was holding the top line back early in this season. He picked up just 4 points (all assists) in his first 10 games, ultimately resulting in a move to the second line.
Once that move was made, the team never turned away from Adam Fantilli as its top line center. While Mo's play did help boost the top line, and Charlie Coyle's third line was terrific; Monahan's line struggled to find any kind of consistency, regardless the pieces moved onto and off of it.
The result: in 78 games played, Sean Monahan scored just 13 goals and 36 points, posting a -1 rating while averaging around 17 minutes of ice time per game.
I'm honestly a little bit perplexed. He was his usual self at the faceoff dot, winning around 52% of his draws. His CORSI% was above 50%, and he looked as stout as ever defensively. No matter where you try to break it apart, everything points to him being a solid #2 center-except his points total.
Part of the issue was the revolving door of players on his wing-none of whom were able to score consistently this year. Another part was luck. He scored about 4 goals fewer than expected, which is in part due to his shooting percentage dropping from 14.8%, down to 9.9% (his career average is 13.8%).
Shooting was the big underlying issue here, in fact. Sean fired just 222 shot attempts, with only 131 of those finding the net. There were a lot of blocked shots, and a lot of shots that missed the net from him this season.
For comparison, 222 shot attempts was good enough for 12th on the team. Last season, Sean attempted 214, while playing in 24 fewer games. In fact, he had only 3 fewer shots actually make it on goal, despite his missed time last year.
An underlying issue?
All of the bad stuff aside, I don't think there is any reason to panic. In fact, Monahan has done this a few times in his career. He will have a big "up" year, then follow it up with a "down" year, and rebound in between.
From the 20,000 foot perspective, it sure looked to me like he was dealing with an injury this year. If the team had fallen out of the race, I have a gut feeling that tells me he probably would have sat out and started recuperating. Instead, he tried to play through it, and the result was lost production.
A summer off to heal and get everything back to working the way it should, might be all Sean needs to rediscover that lost production. The good news is, even if he can't get back to a point-per-game pace, he brings enough to the mix to remain a steady middle-six contributor for the Blue Jackets.
Most likely, he lands somewhere in between last year and this year, from an offensive production perspective. Lets hope for that.
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