Gaborik’s game fitting in nicely with Kings

The speed is back in Marian Gaborik’s game. So is the breath-taking acceleration, the shark-like offensive instincts and the touch of a 40-goal scorer. He even is smiling.

Gaborik headed west and rediscovered his game after the Blue Jackets traded him to the Los Angeles Kings in March. He leads all playoff scorers with 11 goals, is third with 18 points and is a huge reason the Kings are on the verge of reaching the Stanley Cup finals. They play the Chicago Blackhawks tonight in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

The series has been magnificent, but it has been hard for many Blue Jackets fans to stomach.

That’s not just because of Gaborik. Another failed Blue Jackets experiment, Jeff Carter, has excelled with the Kings in

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ways he never did with the Jackets.

Carter has held the Stanley Cup, but the Gaborik wound is fresher. This is the Gaborik the Blue Jackets were hoping they would get when they traded forwards Derick Brassard and Derek Dorsett and defenseman John Moore to the New York Rangers in April 2013.

Starved for skill and scoring, general manager Jarmo Kekalainen thought Gaborik would stoke his club to a late-season push to the playoffs before they missed out on a tiebreaker.

Gaborik showed only flashes of elite talent during his time with the Blue Jackets. Mostly, he looked out of place in coach Todd Richards’ system. The Jackets became a crash-andbang team that went demolition derby on the forecheck.

Gaborik is a Ferrari. His forechecking was more positional than pounding, so his addition to any line made it lesser. The Blue Jackets waited for him to adapt or for him to find a niche to play and thrive within the system.

“It’s the question you always ask yourself as a GM: If you had them around for longer, would it have turned around for them?” Kekalainen said. “It’s something you see all the time. I could give you 100 examples of guys who needed a change to get to the next level, or to get back to the level they once were at.

“How (Gaborik) is playing now for the Kings … that’s exactly what we hoped for when we traded for him (from the Rangers). But it didn’t work here.”

Gaborik had two serious injuries with the Blue Jackets, but he was never a fit, even when healthy. A pending unrestricted free agent, the Jackets decide to cut bait. Kekalainen traded him to the Kings on March 5 for a conditional second-round pick this season or next, a thirdround pick and fourth-line forward Matt Frattin, who was barely used by the Blue Jackets the rest of the way.

The Blue Jackets also paid 50 percent of Gaborik’s remaining salary, about $750,000, for the remainder of the regular season. Gaborik played in 34 games with the Blue Jackets, scoring nine goals and 22 points. With the Kings, he has played in 39 games — 19 in the regular season and 20 in the playoffs— and has 16 goals and 34 points.

Gaborik has played mostly with center Anze Kopitar and wing Dustin Brown. Unlike in Columbus, the line does not revolve around him; he simply accents Kopitar and Brown.

“When we talked (after the trade), I told Marian: Maybe our team wasn’t ready for a player like him yet,” Kekalainen said. “Maybe he could have been a better fit maybe a year or two from now.”

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