Scratch indicates Savard is on trading block
Jackets scuffle early, but Tortorella stayed upbeat
The most significant development for the Blue Jackets on Thursday happened before their game against Tampa Bay, not during their 6-4 loss.
When the Jackets took the ice for pregame warmups, David Savard was not with them. The rugged defenseman was a healthy scratch.
The decision to bench Savard had nothing to do with his play. Rather, it was a concession that the Blue Jackets were facing reality in terms of their playoff hopes. A 1-5 road trip before Tuesday’s win over Tampa ended any realistic hopes of the postseason.
With the 30-year-old Savard a free agent after the season, it makes sense for the Jackets to deal him before Monday’s trade deadline. They don’t want to take a chance that what happened to center Riley Nash — an injury that ruined his trade value — could happen with Savard.
So he sat. Jackets players knew what Savard’s scratch meant, and they played the first period as if in a funk.
Here are takeaways from Thursday:
Missing heart and soul
Savard and Boone Jenner embody the Blue Jacket ethic as much as anyone on the team. They might not be blessed with extraordinary skill, but no one questions their work ethic or grit.
Jenner plays anywhere the Jackets need as a forward. But now he’s out for the season with a broken finger.
At least Jenner will be around past
Monday. Savard almost certainly won’t be.
It was clear from postgame comments how much his teammates will miss him.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” said captain Nick Foligno, who also might be traded in the next few days. “Savvy is one of my good buddies on the team here. We’re both dads with three kids. (It’s) the human side of it. We’re really close.
“You could probably call Savvy the same as Boone up front. He’s the guy that leads us back there. He doesn’t wear a letter, but he’s a guy that takes those hard minutes and eats them. Never complains. Guys love him. He’s probably the heart and soul in the back end, to be honest with you. It’s hard to see him out of the lineup, obviously, and
what that signifies, or what that might signify.”
Defenseman Zach Werenski said it was difficult to put into words what it has meant to have Savard as a teammate.
“Obviously, we have to wait to see what happens,” he said. “Nothing’s happened yet, but just in terms of a player on the ice, a teammate, a friend off the ice, there’s not many like him.”
Savard, drafted by Columbus in the fourth round of the 2009 draft, has played 597 games with the Blue Jackets.
Disastrous start
The Blue Jackets had to figure that the Lightning would be loaded for bear Thursday. The Jackets dominated them
Tuesday in a 4-2 win at Nationwide. The memory of Columbus’ playoff sweep two years ago remains, even if was tempered by Tampa’s hard-fought playoff series win last year on its way to winning the Stanley Cup.
The Lightning had lost five of seven games, and they jumped Columbus at the start. They scored three goals in the first five minutes to chase goaltender Joonas Korpisalo.
“It’s not the way we want to start, obviously,” Foligno said. “You know they were going to come. You know they were desperate for wins.”
Upbeat Torts
One might have expected Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella to be steaming about the loss.
He has been terse and/or angry after losses in which his team didn’t give up three goals in the first five minutes or one with less than one second left in a period.
But he was surprisingly sanguine in his postgame news conference.
“I don’t think we played a bad game,” Tortorella said. “We developed quite a bit of offense. I saw some really good things from certain players. You may want to shoot me in my head about that. But you’ve got to watch the game, and there was some good stuff within our team concept.”
He even defended his team’s start. Asked whether Tampa Bay’s early onslaught was a product of its hunger or the Jackets’ poor play, Tortorella replied, “Neither. Because we had some good minutes there. You’ve got to watch the game, not the score.
“Even though we’re down 3-0, we were playing well.” brabinowitz@dispatch.com @brdispatch