Back in October, we were feeling pretty bold. Bold enough to make 5 wild predictions about the Columbus Blue Jackets and their season ahead. Overall, we were pretty close on some of them, but we were pretty far off on the others. Today, we'll review them all.
Bold prediction #1: The Blue Jackets will have 3 different players exceed 30 goals.
Oh man, we were so, so close with this one. Before the season, yours truly predicted that the Jackets would have 3 players score 30+ goals this year. That would have been a first in franchise history.
I went one further and called my shot, with Adam Fantilli, Kirill Marchenko, and Sean Monahan being the guys to do it. Fantilli and Marchenko actually got it done, tying for the team lead with 31 goals apiece. If not for a slow start to the season, that 40+ goals prediction for Fantilli actually looked pretty good, too.
Unfortunately, Monahan's season was shortened by 28 games due to injury. If not for that wrist surgery, I might have had this one - he scored at a roughly 29 goal pace this year when he was in the lineup.
Verdict: wrong. But, 2 out of 3 ain't bad...
Bold prediction #2: Daniil Tarasov wins the starting job and finishes top-10 in the NHL in save percentage.
This one from Matthew Duffey was very bold, and it turned out going in the complete opposite direction. Tarasov never gained Dean Evason's trust, earning only 19 starts on the season. And, he did himself no favors in those starts. Only 5 goaltenders league-wide posted a worse save percentage than Daniil's .881% (min: 15gp).
Verdict: swing and a miss. But hey, it was bold.
Bold prediction #3: The Jackets will win 30 games and exceed 75 points.
Maybe I wasn't being quite as bold with this one, though it felt like I was at the time. This would have been a 3-win, 9-point improvement in the standings over their previous campaign; which honestly felt optimistic after what happened over the summer.
I missed in the wrong direction. The Jackets had one of the most inspiring seasons in franchise history this year, winning 40 games and just barely missing out on the playoffs with 89 points.
Verdict: winner winner! The bar has been raised several notches.
Bold prediction #4: Kent Johnson leads the team in scoring.
Mike Stump brought this one to the table, and I thought he was onto something. Kent Johnson looked really good all throughout camp and the preseason. And, his season started out red hot, with 5 points in his first 4 games.
But in that fourth game, he suffered an injury that set him back until mid-November; and all but ruined his chance to lead this team in scoring. Still, this prediction looks really good in hindsight. KJ finished third on the team with 57 points in 68 games - and 4th on the team in points per game. Not bad for a guy who was being written off by many after a brutal sophomore slump last year.
Verdict: wrong. But, agonizingly close.
Bold prediction #5: The Jackets make major changes to the roster at the trade deadline.
Let's face it: there probably wasn't a world where bold predictions #3 and #5 on this list were both going to come true. It was one or the other, and boy are we glad that it was #3.
This last prediction was made based off of league-wide projections for this team, which generally had them finishing at or near the bottom of the entire NHL. We thought this would be a feeling out season, for new head coach Dean Evason; and for Don Waddell, with the aim of starting to make his mark on this roster around the trade deadline.
A lot of the players he brought in last summer were on one-year deals. It felt like we were being primed for a big sell-off. But, what made this prediction bold was the idea that he might make a larger impact to this lineup with a franchise-altering trade. That did not happen.
Instead, he wisely kept this group together at their request, and let them play out the season on their own terms. Their play through the first 5 months of the season earned them that right. It also obliterated bold prediction #5. I'm glad this one fell well short of becoming true.
Verdict: wrong. Thank goodness, because we loved the these guys battled.
We went 1 for 5 on our bold predictions this year. If we take partial credit on the 30 goal scorer prediction, we'll say 1.5 out of 5. Our next task will be some bold offseason predictions for this summer. Hopefully we can do better with those, stay tuned!