The Blue Jackets embarked upon their longest road trip of the season over the last 10 days. They played 5 games, beginning in New York and finishing in Seattle.
Suffice to say, it was a disappointing trip. They finished 1-3-1, earning just 3 of a possible 10 points; allowing 16 goals in the process while scoring only 11 of their own.
The lone win came Tuesday night in a 2-1 shootout win over the Seattle Kraken. Adam Fantilli scored the only Blue Jackets goal during regulation, continuing a red hot pace that started after being promoted in the lineup.
Good news: Adam Fantilli proved he belongs on that top line.
The line shuffling of head coach Dean Evason can be head scratching at times. Look no further than the tweaks he made to the lineup despite this team's four game winning streak; which kicked off their four game losing skid.
With that said, promoting Adam Fantilli to the top line has not been one of those head scratching moves. To be honest, it's about ten games overdue. The fact of the matter here is, he's the most dangerous center this team has.
Of course, they had to start the season differently first. Sean Monahan was terrific in his top line duties between Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov last year. They deserved the chance to run it back.
But, Monahan has started this season slowly. Really slowly. While Marchenko and Voronkov have carried the load offensively, he scored just 6 points (1 goal) in 13 games between them.
Meanwhile, Fantilli was putting up solid underlying numbers, but being left behind by some of the other guys with similar ages and draft acumens. Something needed to change.
As this team generally struggled to score consistently over the last few games, Dean needed to try something different. He swapped his top two centers, and everyone has benefitted.
For starters, Fantilli has almost as many points in three games as Monahan did in thirteen. He has 2 goals and 5 points since the promotion, 13 shots on goal (24 attempts), a 62.5% CORSI rating, and going 15-14 in the faceoff dot. Most of those losses (7) came last night in Seattle. Call it an off night.
Monahan has also seen a boost to his game. Without facing the other team's top line each and every shift, he has two points (1g, 1a) in his last two games.
The point here is, there is no reason to switch these guys back around any time soon. I understand why Monahan started the season as the 1c, but Adam is proving to everyone that he's ready. His two-way game is ready, and he has two reliable wingers who play hard on both sides of the puck as well.
It's time for this team to let Adam Fantilli take off, and have Sean Monahan play in the role he was originally signed for.