It’s a family affair this morning, as the Jackets shipped up to Boston to meet the Bruins on the first leg of this year’s “Dad’s trip”. But having Dad up in the luxury box doesn’t sound like it will stop them from dropping the gloves.
Meanwhile, at Icethetics, they were spot on about the return of the Solar Bears (can’t wait for those jerseys), and the Islanders new Thirds look rather awful, or rather awesome, depending on how you look at them, with very little middle ground.
At Carry The Flag, The Coach airs grievances about Rick Nash’s performance vs. Minnesota.
PHT is thinking that Jim Rutherford should be feeling the heat in Carolina for the Hurricanes‘ poor performance – and not surprisingly there are a lot of comparisons to the Jackets. On a related note, Matt over at View From My Seats asks “what does every NHL team except the Islanders understand?” His thoughts worry me because a simple Cut and Replace of “Islanders” to “Blue Jackets” wouldn’t sound that far off.
We’ve got a newcomer in the pool – Blue Jackets Country – and he starts by wondering if this situation is too much weight for a goalie’s shoulders.
At Backhand Shelf, they point out that the Bruins have issued a “punk test” to the rest of the NHL. Will the Jackets answer the bell? The answer may be tied to Alison’s demand for someone to step up over at Heart of a Jacket.
At Martini Hockey, he writes an open letter to Ryan Miller and breaks down tonight’s matchup in a tale of two cities. When he says that the Jackets have the talent, but fail to execute, it segues rather nicely into asking “Are the coaches working the right way?”, which Gallos has some excellent thoughts on over at DBJ.
After being scratched and criticized for his lack of toughness, did Tyler Myers decide to get even by rubbing out Dainius Zubrus, or was this simply a case of “7 foot behemoth hits dude”?
Over at the Dispatch the team continues to work on moving East, and it’s interesting that the Jackets will send Priest and Howson to the Board of Governor’s meetings, but that JPM will only appear if he thinks he has a chance to argue his case. Memo to JPM: If this is as important an issue to the franchise as it appears to be? Go down and show it. Network with other owners. Have a few quiet meetings over drinks or a dinner to lobby. You operate on a social-economic strata that puts you as a peer or superior to the men of power in that room, and one which Priest and Howson may aspire to, but do not match. Use that. Destiny is TAKEN, not applied for after getting proper paperwork in order.
A few more links from Backhand Shelf: Why Pekka Rinne will win the Vezina, annoying practice habits (anyone want to put these on a bingo card and go down to Jackets’ practices?), and why you damn well should be wearing a visor.
At Columbus Wired, they look at some of the newcomers, while LTL has turned his gaze to the draft.
At Puck Daddy, they chat with Bobby Ryan about hard times in Anaheim, take a look at the Chris Stewart Shanaban, and argues that the NHL shouldn’t overprotect goalies.
It looks like a Canadian finally bought (a minority share in) the Nashville Predators, and it won’t shock you to see Columbus in another THN list of free agent flops, though I argue that blaming Wiz for being made an example of is kind of like blaming your tires for getting a nail in them. (The relatively low scoring since he came back, though, is fair game.)
This will shock you: Nikita Filatov is looking at heading back to Russia. But the guys at Silver Seven are suggesting he take a different path. We can only say “Good luck.”