Michael Arace: With a seismic shift in personnel, Columbus Blue Jackets begin new era
The Blue Jackets have had two epochs since the dawn on the 21st century, when they began life as an expansion franchise. Thursday night, when their 21st season gets underway with a game against the Arizona Coyotes, marks the beginning of the Third Epoch.
The First Epoch opened with the heady honeymoon years of the early aughts.
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On opening night in 2000, a few players who were in the lineup — namely, Geoff Sanderson, David Vyborny and Espen Knutsen, Ron Tugnutt — turned out to be all-time favorite Jackets.
On opening night in 2002, Mike Sillinger made his Jackets debut. His son Cole was born in Columbus the following May.
On opening night in 2004, Rick Nash made his NHL debut and scored a goal in a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.
One swoon turned into another and everyone fainted.
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First Epoch: Doug MacLean era
The First Epoch might be best defined by its middle — or, its center, if you will. After an owners’ lockout killed the 2004-05 season, then-GM Doug MacLean used the No. 6 overall pick to take center Gilbert Brule instead of center Anze Kopitar in the ‘05 draft.
Of all the players selected in what was known as “the Sidney Crosby draft,” Kopitar’s career numbers are second to only Crosby’s. Kopitar is a future Hall-of-Famer.
Kopitar would have satisfied the most glaring need of the First Epoch: a center to feed Rick Nash. That is hindsight, but it is limpid, luminous, transpicuous and unblurred hindsight. It is what GMs are paid to see.
Brule, beset by injuries early in his career, was traded by MacLean’s successor, Scott Howson, for Raffi Torres in 2008. Brule played 146 games in the Union Blue.
The Jackets lost 299 games over their first seven seasons. Add in overtime losses, and the number is 338. A once-promising dawn — Nationwide Arena was filled to capacity, or something close to it, until the “Sidney Crosby” draft — went dark. A generation of fans left the building.
It was a decade before they had a winning record and made the playoffs (in 2009, when coach Ken Hitchcock whipped them down the stretch). But that mild success was fleeting.
Second Epoch: Davidson, Kekalainen, Tortorella
The Second Epoch began with the arrival of hockey-ops president John Davidson, GM Jarmo Kekalainen and, after a minute, coach John Tortorella. They had a low bar to clear. They made progress.
The first season for the new brass was the lockout-halved season of 2012-13, when the Jackets should have tanked for a draft shot at Nathan MacKinnon but instead won 15 of their last 17 games, missed the playoffs by a point and wound up with Alexander Wennberg.
Over the next six seasons, the Jackets went 261-192-39, had their first 50-victory and 100-point seasons, made the playoffs four times and finally won a round. Their earth-shaking sweep of the mighty Tampa Bay Lightning in 2019 was, and remains, the high-water mark of team history.
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In the second round, the Jackets lost in six to the Boston Bruins, and a debate ensued over Kekalainen’s “all-in” strategy with free agents. I think it was worth it. It raised the bar, at the very least. It took courage.
After the exodus, John Tortorella may have put in the best coaching job of his career when he pushed the 2020 Jackets past the Toronto Maple Leafs in the qualifying round inside the Toronto bubble.
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Then came the beginning of the end of the Second Epoch, in the first game of the first round of the playoffs proper, at 10:57 of the fifth overtime. Brayden Point scored to lift the Lightning to an epic 3-2 victory. It was Aug. 11, 2020.
The denouement came earlier this year when the Jackets finished a 56-game season with 38 losses, including OTLs. Kekalainen, rejoined by the prodigal Davidson, gutted the roster, and piled up picks and prospects. They looked ahead. They used a telescope.
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What the Jackets are espying is a “Sidney Crosby draft” or two. Maybe they got lucky in the last draft, when they picked up centers Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger. Or maybe, with two more first-round picks in 2022, they land their next superstar.
Is there an Evgeni Malkin in there? A Kopitar? A Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews? Alexander Ovechkin? Steven Stamkos? Crosby? Only time will tell.
Compared to the last opening night, back in January, the Jackets’ roster has turned over by a half. The Norris Trophy candidate, the former No. 3 overall pick — a center, no less — just to name a few, have moved on or been moved out.
Never before has there been such a seismic shift — a fault line that tips so hard to toward the future — in Columbus. This is the Third Epoch, and Cole Sillinger, for one, is in the lineup on opening night. It may or may not lead to the Stanley Cup. But now it starts.
marace@dispatch.com