Wake Up Blue Jackets Fans!

I woke up this morning to the news that many local school districts had closed due to a "snowstorm". Here in Hilliard, schools were on a two hour delay. I braced for the worst as I got in the car to drive my daughter to school at 10:30AM. It turns out the roads are fine. This has me extremely concerned.

The Blue Jackets play a game of paramount significance tonight against the Phoenix Coyotes. We need a SELLOUT! A LOUD sellout. Calling off school because there are tiny snowflakes flying though the air is not a good way for the fans to commence preparations for this important battle!  If we can't deal with a little dusting of snow, why don't we chug on over to Mamby Pamby Land where maybe we can find some decent snow tires for our jackwagons!

WAKE UP Blue Jackets fans! We need to practice our drills and go over our battle plan. We need to neatly iron the flag and clean the cannons. Step lively soldiers!!!

Drill Sergeant Loses It - Funny blooper videos are here

To Catch a Predator

By Jim Coleman

Ok, the headline may not be politically correct but I beg for your forgiveness. The streets are covered with ice, large snowflakes are falling on Nationwide Boulevard today and the temperature is below freezing. A perfect setting for a good old good one between two NHL rivals right here in Columbus, Ohio. I'm a little jacked up!

Tonight is one of the most important games in franchise history. The Western division is a log jam! The Blue Jackets are on the outside looking in, four points out of being in fifth place.  The Blue Jackets plight is not just about getting enough points; it’s about climbing over at least three more teams to get to that eighth spot and second franchise appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.    

We go head to head with the Preds three more times this season and two of those games are in the unfriendly confines of Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.  I guarantee when you wake up on Sunday, April 10^th and look at the NHL standings, if the Blue Jackets are looking back at the Predators we will be in Sir Lord Stanley’s Play-off Pallooza!!

Pundits will predict how many points we need to make the play-offs, bloggers and announcers will argue about what our record has to be in the next two weeks to make it.  Today I am declaring a new bold strategy!!  Today the men who wear the Blue Jackets sweater will lace up their skates to catch a Predator!    LET'S GO JACKETS!!!

Now What?

The Blue Jackets playoff run encountered a major speed bump last night when Derick Brassard was forced to leave the game with a hand injury. Brassard left the ice after taking a puck on his left hand and did not return. Today the Blue Jackets placed Brassard on injured reserve and stated that he is expected to miss two to three weeks of action.

This injury will almost certainly cause GM Scott Howson several sleepless nights as he contemplates how to address the loss of the team's top center at a most inopportune time. While Howson has shown extreme patience up to this point, his hand may have just been forced. 

The Blue Jackets are staring down the barrel of a crucial four game stretch to end the month that will likely dictate whether or not they earn a birth in the post-season. After traveling to Chicago to take on the Blackhawks on Friday, the Jackets return home to welcome the Predators and the Coyotes next week before traveling to the historically unfriendly confines of Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. If the Jackets manage to walk this plank of pivotal match-ups, the month of March opens with a three game swing through western Canada, topped off by a stop in St. Louis on the way home. While that road trip looms large, it might not matter much if the Jackets don't fare well in the next four critical games.

Howson finds himself at the proverbial crossroads, and he doesn't have much time to consult his GPS navigation app. The Blue Jackets have shown a lot of heart since the All-Star break and have clawed their way back into the playoff conversation. But even with Brassard in the lineup, the perception has been that they were still a couple of key parts short of having what they need to reach the post-season. With Brassard out of the lineup, that perception is now a stark reality.

With the NHL trade deadline less than two weeks away, Blue Jackets fans can be thankful that GM Scott Howson still has time to do something. The question is, will he? Howson refrained from making any significant moves during the extended swoon the Jackets experienced in December and January, a decision he may now be regretting. With time running out and the season in the balance, it's time to cut bait or become the bait. 

This is Scott Howson's moment of truth. The Blue Jackets' players have stepped up their game late in the season and have been going all out to make the playoffs. Will Scott Howson do the same?

Moore Is Less

Last Thursday evening, the final question co-host Eric Smith asked me during the "5 in 5" segment on the Fire The Cannon Show was this: should John Moore be playing more? I went with "no", but stated that I would like to see him stay up in Columbus for a while, if not the entire season. This was before Anton Stralman went to the edge of his NHL career, stood and looked down, and then suddenly found his game.

My thinking at the time was that it might do wonders for John Moore to come up here and see exactly how much different the game is at the NHL level and to learn which specific skills he needs to focus on in his development. And while I hear all of the conservative types saying don't rush him, I also see a good number of teams electing to educate their prized pupils right here in the bigs and finding a way to do it in a responsible way.

Anton, I'm not kidding around. Don't make me come
over there and beat you with this microphone.

So if Moore could stay up and play every third game for a while, log 10 or 12 minutes when he plays with that potentially increasing based on merit, all the while spending quality time with NHL players, I think it would better than playing with lots of guys who aren't in the NHL. However, if he isn't going to play at all, then sending him back to Springfield is a no-brainer. And thanks to Stralman's unexpected resurgence, Moore wasn't playing at all. 


Speaking of which, does anybody else think it's somewhat freaky the way coach Scott Arniel puts guys into "time-out" and a few days later they come back twice as good? Are they being brainwashed? Does Howson send them over to Grant Hospital for a non-invasive lobotomy? Maybe he has Bob Boughner take them to a nearby warehouse and torture them by taping their eyelids open and making them watch endless loops of Kisscam and Guess Which Box Has the Pizza In It, and then Arniel sits them down and "makes them an offer they can't refuse." Come to think of it, maybe we don't want to know. Mr. Russell, coach Arniel would like to see you in his office.

Miscellany:

• A titanic tilt tonight against the L.A. Kings  is looming, and the start might very well be given to Matthieu Garon. According to reports circulating yesterday, Steve Mason has bronchitis and flu-like symptoms and was told yesterday to stay away from the team. Even if Garon starts, Mason would have to be on the bench. If Mason doesn't improve and soon, Scott Howson could be forced to make an emergency call to Springfield.
• The Jackets are playing perhaps their best hockey of the season over the last 10 games. Should Howson risk screwing with the chemistry by shaking things up at the deadline? It's an interesting question. For a nice point/counterpoint, check out Patrick Drottar's article at Bleacher Report where he takes the "don't mess with it" stance, and Bart Logan's piece for Hockey Buzz in which he lobbies for Howson to pull the trigger.
• Ethan Moreau might play tonight, and Derek Dorsett (concussion) might not. Moreau has been in a "timeout" for quite some time, albeit for an injury. Still, let's hope Arniel leveraged some of Moreau's downtime by performing some of his Jedi mind tricks on him.

UPDATE: Both Mason and Dorsett were on the ice for the morning skate today.  Garon was the first off the ice though, so that would seem to indicate he is starting. However, it's a good sign to see that Mason is being allowed to be near the team. It looks like he will be on the bench for tonight's game at least. It's also good to see Dorsett up and about, but I would be shocked to see him the lineup tonight.

Dear Hockey Gods . . . .

Never underestimate the power of prayer. That's what my grandmother taught me. She is 97 years old. That's good enough for me.

My grandmother subscribes to the belief that prayer works better when you get as many people as possible praying for the same things. This takes the prayer and gives it a higher priority in the queue. In modern terms, you need to try to get the prayer to go "viral" and get it to "trend", which in turn gives the prayer more of a fighting chance to be heard. Think about it, at any given time there might be a billion different prayers going on. So if there are hundreds or thousands of people saying the same prayer, it's got a better chance to rise above the din.

I hear laughing. Did I mention that my grandma is 97? What have we got to lose? If your answer is meaningful games in March, a playoff spot and a significant amount of free chili then we're on the same page. So with that in mind, let's coordinate our praying efforts and make sure we are all leveraging economies of scale by praying for the same thing. We need to take this one day at a time, so here is my proposed Hockey Gods Prayer for February 11th:

Dear Hockey Gods, who art in hockey heaven, praise and glory to you when it comes to all things hockey. Give us this day a win for the following teams, and forgive us for any hockey trespasses, as we forgive those who have made hockey trespasses against us (yes, even Matt Cooke). Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil (which should be a little easier tonight since Adam Foote is not playing).

• Boston over Detroit
• New Jersey over San Jose
• Dallas over Chicago
• Anaheim over Calgary
• St. Louis over Minnesota (and please no three point game in this one)
• and Columbus over Colorado

 Amen.

For those of you new to this praying thing, it helps to hold your hands like this:

My grandmother might lecture me about praying to false Gods but 1) if Grandma were a hockey fan I think she would understand and 2) I'm counting on the fact that she isn't going to see this. Plus, with all the serious shit going down in Egypt and what not, we don't want to clog up the main prayer lines to The Big Guy in The Sky. Thus, I'm hoping (and praying!) that we're OK with this. But I should at least provide you with the following disclaimer: Saying this prayer could result in your sin card getting hole-punched and might ultimately lead to a trip to hell (the real one, not Detroit). Accordingly, just in case this backfires, we might want to reevaluate this strategy after the weekend.

Release the prayer hounds.

And God bless you Grandma Dee. I love you with all my being.

UPDATE: This photo of "Hockey Baby Jesus" was submitted by reader zekebud. It might help to print it out and have it in front of you when you say your prayer.