With an important player's season coming to an end, the Columbus Blue Jackets need to try to patchwork together a serviceable enough defense corps to make a playoff run. So far, they haven't found the right formula.
The Blue Jackets released awful news this afternoon, announcing that defenseman Damon Severson would miss the rest of this season after undergoing shoulder surgery yesterday. This is a gut punch for team and player alike.
This was easily Damon's best season since joining the Blue Jackets as part of a sign and trade in June of 2023. He looked comfortable and confident this year, playing mostly on the top pairing alongside Zach Werenski.
Hopefully, Damon has a speedy recovery and gets right back into this role next season. His resurgence has been a big part of this team's improved play for much of this campaign.
How big? Well, since he went down with this injury, the Blue Jackets have lost four games in a row. If you include the game he left, it's five in a row. Clearly, they are going to miss his presence on the back-end. But, it doesn't have to be so difficult.
There is a player here who is ready to play a bigger role.
As the team searches for answers to try to salvage their season, it feels like they are missing the obvious one. We have seen Zach Werenski play quite a bit alongside Ivan Provorov, Erik Gudbranson, and Dante Fabbro.
But, as I watch the team continue to struggle, with none of those pairings working, I have to wonder: why not pair him with Denton Mateychuk?
With the way this team is constructed, someone is going to have to play on their off-side with Severson out of the lineup. That's unavoidable because there are no more right-shot defensemen on the NHL roster, and frankly, nobody in the system is ready to come up and fill that role.
The Jackets have one of the game's most elite players in Werenski, so what it really comes down to is this: who on this roster can keep pace with him?
If you look at it that way, it's hard to make a case against putting Mateychuk on the top pairing with Werenski. Denton can play the off-side. He's not likely going to go out and steal the show. But, he can think the game at Werenski's level, while playing reliably and predictably on both sides of the puck.
The reason Provorov doesn't work with Werenski, is because he likes to have the puck on his stick a lot of the time. Gudbranson does not work because he is what he is; a third pairing guy who should be playing secondary minutes and on the penalty kill. And, let's be frank here: Fabbro is a mess this year.
Meanwhile, Mateychuk sits third on this team in scoring from the blue line. He has 13 goals, and quietly has been a part of nearly every one of this team's most effective defense pairings this season. All of this while playing the fourth-most ice time; nearly 5 minutes per game fewer than Provorov.
It's time for the Blue Jackets to free Denton Mateychuk. Put him and Werenski on a pairing together and see what happens. Best case scenario, it works and they lead this team into the playoffs. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work and the team continues to lose anyway.
Bolstering my point: the two played a couple of minutes together last night in Carolina and posted the best metrics of any pairing on the ice.
At this point, what does it hurt to try?
The final point I'll add here is that, by putting your best two defensemen together, you can balance out the rest of the lineup. Jake Christiansen and Erik Gudbranson put up pretty positive results together in limited minutes at the beginning of the season. As did Provorov and Fabbro.
There is no reason this team should be getting dominated on a nightly basis like they have been for the last two weeks. It's not just issues on defense, but cleaning these pairings up would certainly help.