Breaking down the 3 former Blue Jackets general managers, and setting the expectations for the next one
The Columbus Blue Jackets are about to hire the fourth GM in their history. What better time to look back and reflect upon the other guys who have been here? And if we're going to do that, let's set the expectations for the next person.
Doug MacLean
Those of us who have followed the Blue Jackets since their inception, would probably rather skip this section. In fact, if we could delete anything from this franchise's history, I think many of us would go back to February 11, 1998, and do whatever was in our power to prevent the team hiring MacLean in the first place.
It made sense at the time. MacLean had been the head coach of another recent expansion team (the Florida Panthers), and had a long career in hockey leadership.
Things started off well enough for Doug and the Blue Jackets. Actually, their first year in the NHL was generally viewed upon as a success for an expansion team. Attendance was strong (as one would expect from a shiny new sports team); and the team's blue collar, defense-first structure was easy to get behind.
Goaltender Ron Tugnutt immediately became a Columbus hockey legend, winning 22 games for the expansion Jackets. They drafted an apparent future #1 defenseman (Rostislav Klesla), and had a thrown together group of mostly solid veterans.
Unfortunately, everything from year 1 on, was mostly downhill for the Blue Jackets under Doug MacLean. Any positive move to fill roster holes, was typically met with two negative moves on the other side.
The MacLean era was marked with questionable decisions and impatience throughout the entire organization. The Jackets would sign veteran players whose best days were behind them, and throw them into vital top line roles. The worst thing: most of them weren't even former stars. You can run through another fan's rundown of his moves here.
MacLean would acquire draft picks, only to turn them into missed opportunities. When they did draft well, they rushed nearly every prospect straight into the NHL - in prime roles - only to see their development stunted by playing against the best players in the world.
The dysfunction at the top of the organization eventually came to a very public head, when MacLean firmly told a media person that he would not hire Ken Hitchcock to coach his young players - only to introduce Hitch as his new head coach just days later. At that point, the writing was on the wall.
MacLean was fired as the GM of the Blue Jackets at the conclusion of the 2006-07 season. The team's record under his management was a dismal 172–258–62 (.349%).
MacLean's best move: trading up at the 2002 NHL Draft to select Rick Nash first overall. Nash wrote the CBJ record book, and remains the greatest ambassador for hockey in Central Ohio.
MacLean's worst move: allowing Ray Whitney to walk to free agency. Or, is it drafting Gilbert Brule in 2005, when every scout he had told him to take Anze Kopitar? Or, is it... you know what, nevermind. There are a lot to choose from here.
In the end, Doug MacLean's legacy in Columbus is very tainted. It wasn't all bad; he did build this franchise from the ground up and outside of the team on the ice, there were some things to like. But, if you can't win games, you get replaced. Let's look at his replacement.
Scott Howson
After moving on from MacLean, the Jackets took two months before naming his full-time successor. They chose Edmonton Oilers AGM Scott Howson to be their second full-time General Manager.
When the Jackets hired Scott Howson in the summer of 2007, they had never played a playoff game. In fact, they had never even sniffed the playoffs. To that point, their best finish was in 2005-06, the first year out of the lockout, when they finished third in the Central division.
What a time to have that happen. The two teams that finished below them (St Louis, Erik Johnson and Chicago, Jonathan Toews), both landed franchise cornerstone pieces at that draft. That third place finish for the Jackets was only good enough for 13th in the Western Conference. Out of 15 teams.
Our prize at the draft? Derick Brassard. What a difference three picks makes.
To say that the expectations for a winning team right away were high, would be an understatement. The heat was on for Howson the moment he was hired by the Jackets, and honestly, I don't think he did a terrible job. There was just no patience for him to really build things from the ground up. This team needed to win, now.
Howson was able to assemble the mess left by Doug MacLean into a playoff team for the 2008-09 season. The Jackets marched into the playoffs on the backs of an MVP-worthy season from Rick Nash, and a Calder Trophy winning season from rookie goaltender Steve Mason.
The team's commitment to all-out defense was impressive under Hitchcock that year. Unfortunately, they ran into one of the greatest hockey teams assembled in the salary cap era, and were absolutely ripped apart by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round.
After a disappointing follow-up season, they fired Hitchcock from his job as head coach. This move sent this team into a free-fall that took years to recover from. They replaced him the next season with a lighter (and less expensive) version of himself: Scott Arniel. It never worked.
Howson made bold moves to try to build this team back into a playoff contender. But, the Jeff Carter - and subsequent Jack Johnson trades were both clear losses for the Blue Jackets. They overpaid James Wisniewski in free agency.
By 2012, the Jackets were back in their familiar place: the bottom of the standings. They had the works record in the league, and (of course) lost the lottery that summer. Worse, they bottomed out in a year when the draft was arguably worse than it's ever been. Their big lottery ticket prize: oft-injured defenseman Ryan Murray.
Now, outside of that 2012 mess, Howson drafted surprisingly well in retrospect. Names like Jakub Voracek, Matt Calvert, Cam Atkinson, David Savard, and Boone Jenner were taken under his leadership. Not bad. They had some obvious misses in there too, such as Nikita Filatov - but, there was a whole generation of Blue Jacket talent that he's responsible for bringing in.
The Jackets fired Howson in February of 2013, with the team in such shambles that they brought on long-time NHL GM Craig Patrick as a special advisor (spy), at the recommendation of the NHL. The team's record under Howson: 174-190-59 (.411%). An improvement over MacLean, but not good enough.
Howson's best move: drafting Ryan Johansen fourth overall, when a lot of people in the fanbase were screaming for defenseman Brandon Gormley.
Howson's worst move: Jeff Carter, easily. Maybe the worst trade in the history of this franchise. Actually, no, it was the worst trade in the history of this franchise. Not up for debate.
Howson showed the Blue Jackets that if they could draft well, they could build a competent organization from the ground up - in spite of other shortcomings. In the end, Howson walked so his successor could run. And, for a successor, the Jackets hired one of the game's best eyes for young talent.
Jarmo Kekalainen
The Blue Jackets named Jarmo Kekalainen as their new general manager the day after they fired Scott Howson. Kekalainen left the same position in Jokerit (Finland) to take on the job, making him the first European GM in NHL history.
It was an easy connection to make, as the team's president (John Davidson) had previously worked with Kekalainen in the St Louis Blues organization. Right away, the team came forward with their plans: they wanted to draft and develop a contending team.
There was just one problem: as was the case with Howson, the Jackets and their fanbase didn't have much of a stomach for a proper rebuild. This team needed to have success immediately.
The good news here is, Howson actually left this franchise with some serviceable talent. In Jarmo's first full year at the helm, the plucky Jackets found their way into the playoffs on the backs of another standout season from Sergei Bobrovsky, who had won the Vezina Trophy the year prior.
Kekalainen did tweak the roster down the stretch, when this team was still competing for a spot. But let's be honest here: a lot of this success was because of the parts and pieces left here by Howson. That was a fun Blue Jackets team, that gave us some of the most memorable moments in franchise history.
Chills.
The next two years for the Jackets were a downward trend because of injuries and a roster devoid of top end talent. But Kekalainen drafted very well in 2015, which ultimately built his defense corps up for what would become the most competitive Jackets team ever. He also shocked the hockey world by taking Pierre-Luc Dubois third overall in 2016.
But things really turned around with the hiring of head coach John Tortorella. An 0-7 start to the 2015-16 season - when this team had a roster with promise - prompted them to fire player's coach Todd Richards, and go with his polar opposite. Immediately, the direction of the franchise changed.
The Jackets quickly became a tight checking, slogging defensive team. Star center Ryan Johansen was labelled as out of shape, pushed away and traded for promising athletic defenseman Seth Jones. Jones would pair up with top prospect Zach Werenski to give the Jackets the best top pairing in their history.
Somehow, Jack Johnson and David Savard were turned into an elite shutdown defense pairing (I still don't know how this happened). The Jackets were able to find enough offense to win some games, which prompted bolder moves from Kekalainen. They even managed to win a playoff series in 2019 - the famed first round sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
But, as things go, eventually it all went away. Unfortunately for the Jackets, the core that Jarmo impressively brought together was broken up after that first round playoff win. The team was thrust into a rebuild, which continues here several years later - and ultimately led to his dismissal as GM.
Kekalainen's best move: hiring Tortorella as his head coach. Torts set the winning culture that made this team competitive. Honorable mention: trading a bunch of spare parts for Artemi Panarin. Panarin had the two most productive offensive seasons in franchise history, before bolting in free agency.
Kekalainen's worst move: both ends of the Marian Gaborik trade were a disaster. But, it has to be hiring Mike Babcock as head coach.
In the end, the Jackets fared pretty well under Kekalainen - 410-362-97 (.471%). In fact, they had easily their best years under his leadership, which is impressive because he never went through a proper build with this team. But, it just wasn't good enough to keep him here after the last two seasons were complete disasters. After 11 years, it was time to move on.
The expectations for success were pushed even higher by Kekalainen, which ultimately led to his removal. This franchise went from "I wish we could win" to "losing isn't good enough" under his leadership. The roster was left in better shape by Kekalainen than it was by either of the two previous GMs. Which leads me to our expectations for the next person in charge. Let's take a look.
The expectation for the next iteration of the Blue Jackets has to be Stanley Cup contention.
As with Howson; Kekalainen walked so his successor could run. The reason the Jackets are taking so much time with this GM hiring is that they know they cannot get this wrong. This team can't restart its rebuild. They have accrued too much talent to have this go sideways.
Whoever is hired for this job, has to take the impressive gathering of young talent accumulated by Kekalainen, and turn it into a team that perennially competes at the top of the league. It won't be easy, but now more than ever, the pieces are here.
As fans, we will not be happy with middle of the pack any longer. We won't rally around a team that squeaks in as an 8th seed and bows out in the first round. Nor should we.
We've been patient for long enough. We're 24 years into this franchise with nothing but a first round playoff series win to hang our hats on. This is a team that has never finished higher than third in its division. Never played hockey in June. All of that has to change, and it has to happen under this build.
It's time for the Jackets to hang a division title banner at Nationwide Arena. It's time to see this team play a game 7. It's time for this team to build true rivalries, and prove itself to the hockey world as a force to be reckoned with.
No more one and done seasons. No more first round flare-outs. I want to see a team that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing fanbases, as we have seen with the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights in the last few seasons.
That is the expectation for the next general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Anything less will be a complete failure. Fingers crossed that they get this hire right. If not, I'm not sure where this organization can go from here.
For these reasons, I'm happy they are taking their time and weeding through every potential candidate. I don't care if it takes until July - getting the right name in place, is far more important than getting any name in place.
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