Jackets’ grading simple for new faces
The Blue Jackets’ lineup has shared qualities with a revolving door lately. Players come in, players come out and it rarely looks the same two games in a row.
And that’s not going to change through the remaining games of the season. With Columbus out of the playoffs, the final few weeks present an opportunity
For coverage of Tuesday's Blue Jackets-panthers game, visit Bluejacketsxtra.com. for general manager Jarmo Kekalainen to evaluate players throughout the lineup.
Rookie center Josh Dunne made his NHL debut last week, defenseman Gavin Bayreuther got into the lineup for the first time with the Jackets on Tuesday and many other young players have been in and out of the lineup in recent games as their play is assessed.
“We’re gonna have other guys step in here,” coach John Tortorella said Monday. “As I’ve said to you all along when we were basically eliminated out of this, I need to turn to my general manager as he’s trying to put the blueprint together as far as trying to get
this team back on the right road. I leave it up to him quite a bit as far as certain players he wants to see.”
And when new faces do draw into the lineup, the expectations are simple: just play hockey.
Ahead of both Dunne and Bayreuther’s debuts, Tortorella said he and his staff don’t want to overwhelm them with lots of information. They do a small amount of teaching, but for the most part, the goal is to see how they play naturally.
“We don’t overthink it,” Tortorella said. “We don’t give them too much information. … We just want (Bayreuther) to play. I think our management team and the coaches just want to watch him play, how he handles situations.”
More specifics about the systems and the team structure can always be taught down the line, but the opportunity to evaluate a player’s instincts and habits doesn’t come along as often.
Seeing what they can do has meant everything from inserting Dunne, Bayreuther and defenseman Andrew Peeke into the lineup to moving around the players already in to see how they do in certain situations. Last weekend, defenseman Mikko Lehtonen played a game as Seth Jones’ defensive partner just because Kekalainen wanted to see the pairing.
There’s a flexibility to the lineup decisions that comes with being out of the playoff hunt.
“One of the advantages of this disadvantage that we’re in as far as the season we’ve had is that it gives us a chance, and I talk to Jarmo,” Tortorella said. “It gives us a chance to let him see some players, because he’s got to map things out here as we move forward..”
The players who are being granted the opportunity know what the expectation is. Keep it simple, play your game and try to make a good impression.
“I think I’ve just gotta take it a game at a time, and every opportunity I get try to make the most of it,” Dunne said. “Whether it’s one more game, 10 more games, whatever it is in between, just go out there and play as hard as I can and make a good impression.”
Other notes
Max Domi remained a healthy scratch for Tuesday night’s game against the Florida Panthers after first being scratched for the beginning of the back-to-back on Monday. Defenseman Dean Kukan entered the lineup in place of Peeke, also a healthy scratch, as the rotation on the blue line continued. bjohnson@dispatch.com @baileyajohnson_