New York Rangers rivals: Columbus Blue Jackets season preview

Very much like the New York Rangers, this could be classed as a transitional year for the Columbus Blue Jackets who enter 2019-20 in a state of flux.

However, unlike the New York Rangers who are in the final stages of a rebuild and are on a clear path to what the franchise hopes will be a return to the glory days, the Columbus Blue Jackets are trying to forge a new identity following a disastrous off-season.

Losing a flurry of big guns including Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel, Sergei Bobrovsky and, most notably Artemi Panarin who is now of course a Blueshirt, the Blue Jackets are an unknown quantity this year after seeing the meat from their ripe roster picked apart from the bones like a fresh carcass.

Of course, they do still boast talent most notably on the blueline in the form of two absolute studs in Seth Jones and Zach Werenski, with the latter having signed a three-year contract extension with the Blue Jackets in the summer, worth an annual average value of $5 million per season.

There is also some quality in the offensive zone but the likes of Josh Anderson, Cam Atkinson, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Alexander Wennberg are going to have to significantly elevate their games to a whole new level in order to fill the holes left by the likes of Duchene and Panarin.

We’ll get on to Columbus’ comings and goings as well as some of the biggest questions facing them this year shortly but, first, let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at how they fared in 2018-19.

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Although they endured plenty of bumps in the road along the way, the Blue Jackets did stamp their playoff ticket for the third consecutive year after carving out a regular season record of 47-31-4, which included a record of 22-17-2 on home ice and 25-14-2 on the road.

The Blue Jackets ranked 12th in the NHL in goals last year with 258 (3.12 Goals For Per Game) and 11th in Goals Against Per Game with 232, which translates to an average of 2.82 goals per game.

Both stats are above average and it helped that the Blue Jackets had an elite goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky, who was able to stand on his head on countless occasions in order to bail his team out.

They had three players who recorded 60 or more points (Artemi Panarin, 87, Cam Atkinson, 69, Pierre-Luc Dubois, 61) and six players who tallied 35 or more points, while they also had valuable contributions up and down the lineup.

Bobrovsky had a record of 37-24-1 in 2018-19 with a 2.58 Goals Against Average, a .913 Save Percentage and nine shutouts, which played a big role in helping Columbus to finish 5th in the Metropolitan Division and 8th in the Eastern Conference.

However, their playoff status looked uncertain following a record of 5-6-0 in January and that prompted General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen to roll the dice and be extremely aggressive prior to the Trade Deadline, trading for forwards Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel from the Ottawa Senators, in addition to also acquiring goaltender Keith Kinkaid from the New Jersey Devils and veteran defenseman Adam McQuaid from the Rangers.

It was a bold move by Kekalainen who knew that both Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky were unlikely to return to Columbus in 2019-20, and it paid off initially after the Blue Jackets shocked the hockey world by sweeping regular season juggernaut Tampa Bay Lightning in the First Round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

However, the momentum only took the Blue Jackets so far and they came up against a far superior and battle-hardened Boston Bruins team in the Second Round, eventually falling to a 4-2 series defeat.

And, just like that, Kekalainen’s worst fears were confirmed in the off-season when Panarin, Bobrovsky, Duchene and Dzingel all walked in free agency, and the mission now for the Columbus Blue Jackets will be to prove that life goes on and rely on their core of young stars to take them to the next level without big-name stars.

Against The Rangers

The New York Rangers and the Columbus Blue Jackets did battle on four occasions in 2018-19, with the Blueshirts going 1-1-2, being outshot 95-148, scoring 15 goals and letting in 18 goals.

It was a 5-4 shootout thriller for the Rangers in the first game of the year against the Blue Jackets, with Jimmy Vesey converting the winning goal in the shootout after a back-and-forth game at Nationwide Arena.

The second game was a 4-3 overtime victory for Columbus with Jimmy Vesey’s goal and a Chris Kreider pair not enough to get the two points after center Pierre-Luc Dubois scored the overtime winner.

Overtime wasn’t needed in the third game with the Blue Jackets winning another thriller 7-5, with the highlight for the Rangers a two-goal game from Mats Zuccarello, while Artemi Panarin would go on to score the winning goal in the shootout against his future team in the fourth and final game between the two franchises in what was the Rangers’ home finale.