With lockers cleared out and exit interviews completed, the Blue Jackets’ season is officially over. While the NHL Playoffs get underway, we here at the Cannon will be breaking down and analyzing the season that was for our Jackets. We’ll kick things off with the first of our “homegrown” Blue Jackets, Jack Roslovic.
Roslovic’s season had about as high of highs and low of lows as you can get in the NHL. If you look at the midseason report card, it didn’t have many kind things to say about Jack. Thankfully, the NHL is a “what have you done for me lately” league, and to say that Roslovic turned his season around would be an understatement.
He was arguably the Blue Jackets hottest forward in the latter half of the season, including finishing the season on an absolute heater. In his last ten games of the year, while playing as the #1 center, Roslovic tallied 13 points including ten goals. His confidence was as high as I have ever seen it. It is a shame the season was already over at that point.
After a really rough start to the season, Jack was able to turn it around and salvage his year. Even though he ended this season with a lower point-per-game pace than last year(0.55 vs 0.70), he managed to still set personal bests in all offensive categories.
2022 Stats
Games played: 81
Goals: 22
Assists: 23
Points: 45
Plus/Minus: +2
PIM: 12
5v5 CF%: 48.6%
5v5 FF%: 47.7%
Contract Status
Jack is one of the many restricted free agents this offseason for the Blue Jackets. Upon completion of the trade to Columbus, Roslovic immediately signed a two-year contract, worth a total of $3.8M with a cap hit of $1.8M. He’s definitely due for a modest raise this offseason and it will be interesting to see the level of commitment the organization shows to Roslovic when it comes to the term of his deal.
I’d guess he gets somewhere in the 3-4 year range in the ballpark of $3-3.75M per year. The Blue Jackets need center depth, and Roslovic has proven he can play a large role on this team.
High Point
From April 9th until the end of the season, Jack was playing the best hockey he had ever played in a Blue Jacket sweater. He was brimming with confidence and it showed in his play, as well as on the scoresheet. As mentioned earlier, he ended the year with 10 goals in 10 games, which was kicked off by his first ever hat trick as a Columbus Blue Jacket.
In his 300th NHL game, Roslovic contributed on 4 of the Jackets’s 5 goals that, including scoring three of them, and notching the overtime winner.
Jack was also nominated for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy this year. If he wins, he will be the second ever Blue Jacket to take home that hardware along with former captain, Nick Foligno.
Attaboy, Rosie 👏
Jack has been named the CBJ’s nominee for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, presented to “the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and who has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution to his community.”https://t.co/WxdKPmhNeA
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) May 4, 2022
Low Point
This year had to serve as a pretty big learning year for Jack. Like I said, he experienced highs and some pretty deep lows. The lowpoint(s) were early on, up until midway through the season when things were just not clicking for Roslovic.
At one point this season Roslovic had one of the largest decreases in playing time in the entire league, with his TOI being almost FIVE WHOLE MINUTES less than the previous year. There were scoring droughts and trade rumors leading up to the trade deadline, leaving many to wonder if there was a future left in Columbus for Jack.
To his credit, Roslovic said it was not distracting him, and attempted to point out all of the things he had been working on, trying to round out his game. He began taking on other roles within the team, mainly killing penalties and was slowly gaining back the trust of Head Coach, Brad Larsen. Next year will be a real test to see if he can put it all together, and be the consistent top six center the Blue Jackets need him to be.
Report Card
Since this is a cumulative grade for the entire year, rather than just the second half, I’ll give Jack Roslovic a B-. It’s quite an improvement from his midseason grade of D, but his strong play to close out the season once more gives me confidence in his ability to improve moving forward.
How would you grade Elvis Merzlikins’s season?
| A | 11 |
| B | 84 |
| C | 39 |
| D | 2 |
| F | 1 |