DUBOIS ON THIN ICE IN COLUMBUS
Jackets can't get full value for young star because Torts has him parked on the bench
The list of teams interested in Pierre-luc Dubois dramatically increased after the Columbus Blue Jackets centre was benched for the second time in three games on Thursday. But following some harsh comments from head coach John Tortorella, the question is, what effect is this having on the team's asking price?
Is Dubois, whom Tortorella described as a “prima donna,” worth a one-for-one trade with Winnipeg's Patrik Laine? Would Montreal give up Jesperi Kotkaniemi for a player who apparently has quit on his team?
After all, his coach made it clear this isn't a player who is stuck in a slump.
“He doesn't get benched for one shift last night,” said Tortorella. “This has eroded. And it just kept eroding in the first five games.”
Tortorella had more to say. And he didn't hold back.
He criticized Dubois for his attitude, his work effort, and for what he perceived as a sense of entitlement from a young player who has superstar potential — and who seems to already have the inflated ego to go along with it. Tortorella then made a point of saying that Columbus doesn't have a “superstar.” And that when the team did have superstars who weren't going to last beyond the season, both Sergei Bobrovsky and Artemi Panarin were professional enough to at least “play their asses off that year.”
All this because Dubois, who didn't see the ice for the entire second or third period in a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, didn't battle hard enough for a loose puck in the offensive zone on a couple of shifts.
Can you imagine if he actually did something really wrong, like cost his team a goal?
“As long as I'm here, I'm not letting that slide,” said Tortorella, who became more worked up as he spoke. “Not one goddamn person is going to try to affect that and bring us down from that standard. And I won't allow it.”
This was Tortorella at his most brutally honest and unfiltered best. But if you're running the Blue Jackets and trying to get something of equal value back for Dubois, it was also Tortorella at his most harmful. It's the coach's job to get Dubois to become a better player by whatever means necessary. Sometimes, that's chewing him out on the bench or limiting ice time. But it's also Tortorella's job to manage an asset. And the more Tortorella refuses to play Dubois and the more he criticizes his attitude, work ethic and performance, the more the asset becomes diminished on the trade market.
Worse, it becomes an impossible-to-ignore distraction for a Blue Jackets team that's off to a 1-2-2 start in their bid for a third straight playoff appearance.
“They need him to play and they need him to play great for them,” said NHL analyst Kevin Weekes, who played for Tortorella in Tampa Bay as well as at the Spengler Cup. “The hard part is that, if you're not playing him, you have devalued that asset.”
No question, Dubois bears responsibility for this.
After going public and asking for a trade to start the year — despite signing a two-year contract in the off-season and not telling anyone the reasons he wants out — he had to know that all eyes would be on him and his play going forward. It's the same situation with Laine, who reportedly asked for a trade out of Winnipeg.
Except with one big difference: while Laine began the season with two goals and an assist against Calgary in a game where he even dropped the gloves and fought Calgary's Matthew Tkachuk, Dubois has taken a page out of James Harden's playbook and decided to mail it in.
Dubois has one goal and no assists this year in five games. For a No. 3 overall pick, who scored 27 goals a couple of years ago and who led Columbus with 10 points in 10 games in last year's playoffs, this is unacceptable.
This isn't the first time Tortorella has motivated a player by embarrassing them.
Like Dubois, a 20-year-old Vincent Lecavalier didn't always respond well to being constantly chewed out.
“He was hard on him, harder than probably any coach had been,” said TSN hockey analyst Mike Johnson, who was Lecavalier's teammate in Tampa Bay. “Vinny is a strong personality. He doesn't back down. He pushes back. I think it built up to a point where it was `Forget this guy, get me out of here, I don't need this.'
“I think it was (Lightning GM) Jay Feaster who sat them down and said `I'm not trading you and I'm not firing you. Figure it out.' And the team won a Stanley Cup three years later.' ”
Maybe a similar happy ending awaits Tortorella and Dubois in Columbus. Or maybe the Blue Jackets, who have bid goodbye to Rick Nash, Jeff Carter and so many others over the years, are about to lose another potential franchise player for nothing.