TAMPERE, Finland — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Blue Jackets:
Item no. 1: “I think it’ll happen”
The NHL and the Blue Jackets have been meeting with Ohio State officials for several years in an attempt to stage an outdoor game in Ohio Stadium. But it could be the expansion of college football’s playoff system that finally makes it happen.
The biggest hurdle, all parties have agreed, is that Ohio Stadium is not winterized. It hasn’t needed to be, as the last game played each year is typically in mid- or late November before the deep winter freeze settles into central Ohio.
But college football’s decision to expand its playoff format from four teams to 12 will include the option for the higher-seeded teams to host first-round games, likely during the second or third week of December.
“Imagine if Ohio State was hosting a game and they couldn’t play a home game there,” said NHL executive vice president Steve Mayer, who coordinates the league’s special events. “Just imagine that.”
The College Football Playoffs board has said that the new system will start no later than 2026, but it has pushed its commissioners to have a plan in place as soon as 2024 or 2025.
Mayer told The Athletic that the NHL clubs and sites for next season (2023-24) have already been determined, with the public announcements coming later this season. The Blue Jackets and Ohio Stadium are not on next year’s list, he said.
The Ohio State Buckeyes take the field prior to a game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Ohio Stadium. (Ben Jackson/Getty Images)
But beyond that?
“I believe fully that it’s gonna get solved, I really do,” Mayer said of the stadium being winterized. “I think it’ll happen.”
The cost to winterize Ohio Stadium — “We’re talking millions of dollars, not hundreds of thousands,” Mayer said — has been deemed too cost-prohibitive if the only return on investment for Ohio State is a portion of the money raised by one weekend of outdoor hockey games.
Ohio State has qualified for college football’s four-team playoff four times, winning a national championship in 2014, the first year of the current format. It is a perennial power in the Big Ten and nationally, so landing a spot in the new 12-team field would seem to be a regular occurrence.
“In order to make that commitment, I think you’d have to know you’re not just doing a Stadium Series or a Winter Classic,” Mayer said, “that you’re doing football games, concerts and other events that would make that investment worth it over the course of several years.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has always made it clear that Ohio Stadium is on the league’s wish list for an outdoor game. But it’s now on the league’s short list of iconic stadiums that have yet to be transformed into a winter wonderland.
“Iconic is the word, absolutely,” Mayer said. “It’s such a cool place. I’m a huge sports fan. I love going there. Every time I’m there, it’s just an absolute thrill. I can close my eyes and see Archie Griffin running down the sideline.”
The league has had tremendous success staging major NHL events in Columbus — the draft in 2007 and the All-Star Game in 2015 — and it’s been made clear to the NHL that all of the resources required of the city and the Blue Jackets to make an outdoor game possible are in place.
Mayer said the most likely event would be a Stadium Series game — not a Winter Classic on Jan. 1 — Because the NHL would want to time the event with when the students are on campus. The capacity would soar above 100,000 fans, after all.
“We need to fill the place,” Mayer said, “and the kids are key. We’re doing a game at North Carolina State University (later this season) and so many of the tickets have been sold to the students.
“Typically, the Stadium Series is the last week in February. We could even go the last week of March with it.”
Mayer said the league and the Blue Jackets have met multiple times with Ohio State executive associate athletic directors Shaun Richard and Michael Penner and others over the last three or four years and the meetings have been “very productive.”
There are no current meetings scheduled, Mayer said, because the league is preparing for this year’s games and finalizing the games for next season.
The long-held belief by some in Columbus that Ohio State has never wanted to share its iconic stage with one of the other rival sports franchises in town is, in Mayer’s opinion, unfounded.
“We’ve been looking at solutions, trying to figure it out,” Mayer said. “It’s been three or four years. Now, the pandemic delayed things. But every conversation we’ve had has been positive. The people in the room…we get the impression they’d like to do it.”
It appears the expansion of college football’s playoff system could be the new dynamic the negotiations needed to move forward fruitfully. And nothing gets done quicker at Ohio State than when the football program needs it.
Item no. 2: Sophomore slump
An early-season list of struggling Blue Jackets might run longer than a CVS receipt. Goaltender Elvis Merzlikins has an .863 save percentage. Jack Roslovic and Jakub Voracek have scored one goal each. Sean Kuraly and Zach Werenski both have minus-8 ratings.
Through 12 games, including a sweep by Colorado at the NHL’s Global Series in Finland, the Blue Jackets have a roster full of players who have tripped out of the starting block.
It would be unfair, then, to single out sophomore center Cole Sillinger, who has yet to score and has generated only two points in ugly losses to Arizona and New Jersey through the season’s first three weeks.
Except that Sillinger is such a perfect metaphor for the Blue Jackets, who are learning the hard way that nothing weighs heavier than expectations.
Sillinger was a big part of what made the Blue Jackets such an enjoyable (not quite) .500 club last season. He made the NHL at 18 years old, scored 16 goals and flexed a two-way game of a player who was well-established in the world’s best league.
Truly, Sillinger should have gotten more attention than he did. His 16 goals were the most by an 18-year-old in the league since Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov (20) in 2018-19.
Every goal was gravy, every faceoff win a bonus, every blown defensive assignment a teaching moment that would pay future dividends. The Blue Jackets were highly competitive and they were on the right track, thanks to young guns like Sillinger.
But nothing’s come easy for Sillinger in his sophomore season.
Cole Sillinger. (Aaron Doster/USA Today)
“Personally, it’s not the start anyone wants, but you could go down the line with our team and I think everyone hasn’t had the start they’ve wanted,” Sillinger said this weekend. “Once you get one or two (goals), you get the confidence going again and the team will get clicking.
“It’s always easy to play well and play with confidence when things are going well, but it’s hard to impact a game when things aren’t going well. That’s where the mindset’s been, getting back to the basics and trying to chip in, hopefully get a bounce here or there.”
Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen has spoken since the start of training camp about the struggles second-year players often face. The player who had 16 goals as a rookie is now projected to pot 20 or 25. The player who skated in an anonymous role his first time through the league is now a known player to opponents.
That thought process could very well extend to the Blue Jackets as a whole. Nothing was expected of them last season — other than a finish in the NHL’s draft lottery — but they were a competitive club until the final weeks of the season.
But nothing has come easy in 2022-23. They lost five in a row and six of their last seven. They are one of the NHL’s worst clubs defensively and have settled into last place in the Eastern Conference.
“No one’s going to give me an easy one,” Sillinger said. “No one’s going to hand it to us. It’s our job — it’s my job — to dig us out of it.”
Last season, Larsen felt comfortable using Sillinger in almost every situation, but this year he had to shelter him and his line.
In Friday’s first game vs. Colorado, he put Sillinger with two other young players — Yegor Chinakhov and Kent Johnson — so that he could better avoid getting that line caught on the ice against the Avs’ scary top two lines.
Sillinger is playing more than a minute less this season (12:38 per game) than he did as a rookie (13:42), which is telling. He is 0-2-2 through 12 games. It may not be the first time he’s struggled in the NHL, but it’s magnified by it being the start of the season.
And by the Blue Jackets’ losing.
“Everyone has their opinions,” Sillinger said. “Everybody is saying stuff to you. But in the end, I believe I’m an elite player. I know what I need to do to help this team out.”
Item no. 3: Heat at home
The Blue Jackets have drawn a lot of attention in the Finnish media ever since Jarmo Kekalainen, a native son, was named general manager almost 10 years ago. Kekalainen was the NHL’s first European-born GM, a point of pride among Finns.
But patience is wearing off in his homeland after the Blue Jackets were trounced in two games by Colorado in Nokia Arena.
Tommi Seppälä, a columnist for Helsinki-based media outlet Yle Urheilu, took aim at Kekalainen in a story published late Saturday.
“Everyone understands that the time of the young Columbus roster is later, but they should not be this bad,” Seppälä wrote. “What happens next is interesting. The current head coach, Brad Larsen, is Kekalainen’s second coaching hire after he spent seven years as an assistant. If the state of emergency is going to lead to the coach’s firing, it will also put Kekalainen in a weak light.
“The pressure is starting to grow in Kekalainen’s office. How he has worked his way to become the GM of an NHL club is a wonderful story. How he succeeds in his work year after year is another matter. Kekalainen and his team have won one playoff series in nine years.”
Item no. 4: Snacks
• The Blue Jackets’ 3-9-0 start (six points) is tied for the third-worst start in franchise history through 12 games. In 2015-16, the Blue Jackets were 2-10-0 (four). The 2011-12 club was 2-9-1 (five). This season’s struggle, remarkably, matches that of the second year of the franchise, which was 1-7-4 (six) through 12 games. One other harrowing fact about the 2015-16 and 2011-12 seasons, especially if you’re Larsen: neither coach survived the season. In 2011-12, Scott Arniel was fired after 41 games, the midpoint of the season. In 2015-16, Todd Richards was fired after an 0-7 start.
• The astounding part of the current five-game losing streak is that the Blue Jackets haven’t had the lead at any point in any of the games. That’s 300 minutes without ever having a lead. Per the NHL, the last time the Blue Jackets have gone 300-plus minutes without a lead was a 322-minute, 33-second stretch from Feb. 21 to March 1, 2015. The franchise record is 420 minutes, 37 seconds, which they endured from Nov. 11-26, 2005. You think this is as bad as it can get? The 1972-73 New York Islanders went 722 minutes, 16 seconds without a lead. They went 12-60-6 that season.
• Blue Jackets fourth-line center Sean Kuraly took an elbow to the head from Colorado’s Josh Manson in the first period and ended up on his knees, face-down, in front of the Avalanche bench momentarily before trainer Mike Vogt assisted. Kuraly left under his own power, but returned for the second period. He never came out for the third and will be re-evaluated on Tuesday when the Blue Jackets return to practice.
• Left winger Jakub Voracek (upper body) missed Saturday’s game and is considered day-to-day, the club said.
• Next up for the Blue Jackets is the Philadelphia Flyers, who have been one of the NHL’s surprises so far this season under coach John Tortorella and top assistant Brad Shaw. Tortorella and the Blue Jackets mutually agreed to part ways when his contract expired after the 2019-20 season, while Shaw was allowed to walk without even being granted an interview for the coaching job Larsen got. The Flyers, expected to be a lottery club, are 6-3-2 with a makeshift roster. No surprise here, either: Philadelphia is the sixth-stingiest club in the league, having allowed only 2.55 goals per game.
• The Blue Jackets took a morning bus to Helsinki and flew home to Columbus on Sunday, a nine-hour flight. They’re off Monday, but will resume practice at 11 am on Tuesday.
(Top photo of Elvis Merzlikins: Aaron Doster / USA Today)
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