The Columbus Blue Jackets will host the Minnesota Wild tonight at Nationwide Arena. It will be the one and only visit to Ohio by the team from the Land of 1000 Lakes this season.
These two teams will be forever locked at the hip as expansion brethren. Like our beloved Blue Jackets, the Wild entered the league in the year 2000.
This year, both clubs are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their inaugural season in the NHL. Like everything else we've come to know about the Jackets, they are being overshadowed by a team that is doing things a little bit better.
The Wild are fun to watch.
The Minnesota Wild are setting an example for how to build a team from the ground up, despite not having draft lottery luck. They have only picked inside of the top-10 of the NHL Draft once since 2012.
They haven't gone through a true rebuild in their existence. While their teams haven't been good enough to get over the top, they are competitive each and every year. And still, somehow rising quicker than the Blue Jackets.
Their two leading scorers at the moment were taken with picks #12 (Matt Boldy) and #135 (Kirill Kaprizov) in their respective drafts. Their only top-10 pick in this 13-year era (Marco Rossi) was in 2020, and they just flipped him to acquire one of the game's most elite players, Quinn Hughes.
The formula for the Wild has been drafting skill, developing that skill, and letting them come into the league and play their game confidently. Then, GM Bill Guerin is not shy about going out and surrounding them with even more talent. Or, using them to acquire more talent.
When you draft well, it's much easier to do that. They might not be getting the most elite players at the top of the draft. But, they are finding talent, giving proper evaluation to that talent, giving it time, and then using it to either win hockey games; or being bold and packaging to them to get better.
As a result, the Wild sit at 20-9-5 (45 points), currently 4th in the NHL. They are having a great time, while our Blue Jackets are, well...
The Blue Jackets rebuild has sputtered.
While the Wild have been making shrewd moves, the Blue Jackets have chosen to play it safe. Instead of making bold decisions to bolster the lineup, GM Don Waddell has opted to tinker around the edges and hope that keeping the band together will generate growth from within.
So far, it has not.
The Jackets will enter tonight's game against one of the league's hottest teams, having lost 9 of their last 12 games. The magic from last season is all washed away. First, they aren't scoring.
Worse, despite struggling in the goals against category last year: they brought back every piece on the blue line, and kept the same starting goaltender. The results have been, well, as we should have expected.
Jet Greaves steadied the ship with some solid starts, but he's beginning to look human of late. If he reverts to the mean, it is looking every bit the part of a draft lottery club in Columbus. Again.
And, let's be frank: are any of us encouraged by the way this team has drafted the last two years? Their most recent fourth overall pick has been unable to stay healthy, and has just three points in the NCAA this year.
Meanwhile, the player taken right ahead of him leads the NHL in rookie scoring. The guy taken right after him looks the part of a superstar. And, the player I thought they should have taken, was just included in the biggest blockbuster trade this league has seen in a long time.
The one the Wild just made.
Brothers only in tenure.
The fact of the matter is, these two teams aren't comparable at all. The Wild are 962-719-55-193 all-time. The Blue Jackets, a measly 821-873-33-202. That's a near-300 point difference in their history.
Minnesota has made the playoffs 14 times in their existence. They have been to a Conference Finals. It's not even close between these two clubs, really.
This year, that gap is only going to widen as the Wild continue to fight their way up the standings. While the Blue Jackets try to find their way into being a competitive NHL team.
In the end, unlike Minnesota: there's not much of a 25th anniversary celebration going on in Columbus.