Kekalainen Zooms in to deliver his peace plan on Blue Jackets and team: ‘Everyone just relax’
Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen Zoomed his face, and his voice, to a clutch of local and national media Tuesday morning. It’s not usual for a GM to join the rhythm of a post-morning-skate presser. Obviously, Kekalainen wanted to broadcast a message — to any and all interested parties, including the players and coaches on his team.
“I wanted to have this call to just kind of clarify that this coaching staff has gotten us out of slumps before,” Kekalainen said. “They’ve done a great job for us in the past five, six years they’ve been here and they’re the ones that are going to get out of this jam, as well, with the team that we have.”
The NHL’S strict COVID-19 rules have changed the way game days work during the pandemic. The coach and a few players are trotted out, one at a time, to answer a few questions in video conference calls with local media.
On Tuesday, Todd Sharrock, the Jackets’ vice president of communications, announced that a member of the team’s hockey operations staff was in COVID protocol, so Kekalainen and Tortorella would be speaking remotely, from their respective domiciles. Kekalainen looked like he was in his living room. Tortorella had problems with his video feed and, judging by the background noise, he might have been in his barn. But don’t quote me on that.
They were met, virtually, by a cast of hockey writers that included representatives from ESPN, TSN and nhl.com, among others. The national media was drawn to the heat of Tortorella's seat: The Jackets carried a fivegame losing streak into Tuesday night's game against the Detroit Red Wings in Nationwide Arena; Torts is Torts and he's in the last year of his contract; and the buzzards are flying low in Columbus.
What was made clear is that Kekalainen is not about to jettison the most successful coach in franchise history. Not right now, anyway. Probably not this season, short as it is. It's more than 40% gone, the Jackets are below .500 and their playoff participation in 2021 is a highly questionable proposition.
And yet, Kelalainen said Tortorella “has done a great job for us. We owe him a lot for what he has done for this franchise. All the other issues will get settled in time.”
Kekalainen first described his “we're going to snap out of this together” theme in a conversation with The Dispatch on Sunday morning, just before the wheels came off the Jackets' caisson in Nashville and they lost for the seventh time in eight games.
Kekalainen and Tortorella agree that the team's biggest problem right now is a crisis of confidence.
“We need some good things to happen for us,” Tortorella said at the beginning of what was a thoughtful and passionate dissertation on team psychology.
“(We need) not just one, maybe two or three, good shifts in a row,” he said. “A couple goals in a row. Again, just try to relax them. It's a major problem with us — we're a team that's up tight, and it mounts on us . ... We kind of get into a panic mode . ... I'd like to see them play a little pond hockey, just loosen themselves up and play the game of hockey and not overthinking.”
Tortorella was hired on Oct. 21, 2015, after the Jackets lost their first seven games of the season. The streak hit eight on Oct. 22. Since, the worst losing streak the Jackets have had is another eight-gamer — 0-3-5, so with five loser points — during February of last year.
Their winning streaks have had greater durations: 16 in a row in the winter of 2016-17; 10 in a row (amid a 13-1-2 run) in March 2018; the incredible 194-5 stretch amid a rash of injuries last year. Kekalainen mentioned last year's run. Is this year's team capable? Just as losses are magnified in this shortened season, so are victories. They're not out of the playoff race yet, right? String together a few W's and they're in the real hunt. To do that, these Jackets are going to have to find something they've had maybe once or twice this winter. Like, they need to find the game they had on Jan. 23, when they beat Tampa Bay 5-2 in Nationwide Arena; it was their postpierre-luc-dubois-trade statement. We really haven't seen it since.
“The inconsistency has been maddening to all of us,” Kekalainen said.
Four teams in each division will make the playoffs and the Jackets, as of Tuesday morning, had the seventhbest points percentage in the Central. They also had one of the four worst goal differentials (minus-15) in the league.
The answer? Play with joy, Kekalainen and Tortorella said. Want the puck, keep the puck and have fun. Relax, dammit! It could work. marace@dispatch.com