MEDIA CLIPS Columbus Blue Jackets at Pittsburgh Penguins December 12, 2019 Columbus Blue Jackets Blue Jackets’ Emil Bemstrom out six to eight weeks with rib injury By Jacob Myers – The Columbus Dispatch – December 11, 2019 The injury report became a bit busier for the Blue Jackets on Wednesday with another player slated to miss significant time. Rookie forward Emil Bemstrom will miss six to eight weeks because of a dislocated rib and broken cartilage, the club announced. Bemstrom was injured Saturday against Florida on a hit by Brian Boyle with 7:17 left in the second period. Bemstrom finished his shift but did not return to the game after that. Bemstrom was in Columbus being evaluated when the team was in Washington on Monday for a game. He had recently showed some signs of growth on a line with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Sonny Milano. But in general, the 20-year-old Swede has struggled in his first NHL season. After leading the Swedish Hockey League in scoring as a teenager last season, Bemstrom hasn’t made the adjustment to the NHL as quickly as the Jackets had hoped. He has three goals and six assists in 28 games. With Bemstrom out, Eric Robinson will likely see the most playing time in Bemstrom’s place. The Jackets have no other forwards available on their roster, so they could call one up from the Cleveland Monsters. Bemstrom joins Zach Werenski, Kole Sherwood, Markus Nutivaara and Brandon Dubinsky (out indefinitely) on the injury report. Injury updates Werenski and Sherwood were back on the ice at practice. Nutivaara is missing more time after he was expected to return from an upper-body injury that has kept him out since early November. The Dispatch was told that Nutivarra is out because of a separate health issue. There’s no timeline for the defenseman’s return. Coach John Tortorella said after practice that he did not have an update on where Werenski is in his recovery from a shoulder injury. Bank shot When Cam Atkinson steps onto the ice before practice to get his legs warmed up, he said he usually takes some pucks and fires them the length of the ice at an empty net. Sometimes he’ll use the boards and try to bank it in, trying out his geometry skills. The Jackets forward put those to use on an empty-net goal to seal the win at Washington. With a defender closing in on him in the Jackets zone, Atkinson threw the puck off the board to clear it out of the zone but ended up scoring. "I know the angle," he said. "I didn't realize that (the puck) was going to go that fast. I was just trying to get it out and it just kept going and it looked like it kept speeding up. One of those I'll take." Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 12.12.2019 Blue Jackets' depth on blue line tested By Brian Hedger – The Columbus Dispatch – December 11, 2019 It was late October and things were sorted out with the pecking order among Blue Jackets defensemen. Coach John Tortorella had found his top six, which left Dean Kukan and Scott Harrington on the outside of the regular rotation. Zach Werenski and Seth Jones formed the first pairing, as usual. Ryan Murray and Markus Nutivaara had become the second pair, who also moved the puck up the ice skillfully. The third duo was a bit of a throwback to the 2017-18 season, with stout rookie Vladislav Gavrikov and even stouter veteran David Savard as the stoppers. “I think we've settled on the six,” Tortorella said Oct. 26 in Philadelphia before a 7-4 loss to the Flyers. “Right now, we're pretty satisfied with our three pairs, with Kuks and Harry being our depth guys. I don't want to put a number on them, but they're the guys that are out.” As it turned out, it took only the game that followed to make those comments obsolete. Murray suffered a broken hand against the Flyers, knocking him out for the next six games and throwing the Jackets' defensive zen out of whack. Kukan, who also played against the Flyers that night while filling in because of Nutivaara's lower-body injury, wound up staying in the lineup and hasn't left it since. Harrington also played four games during Murray's absence, skating twice while Nutivaara was a healthy scratch. Then came another blow. Nutivaara was struck in the head by the puck Nov. 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights and hasn't played since — missing 15 games and counting. Murray returned two games later, but the original pairings were still not possible. Nutivaara was still out, Murray missed another game because of a swollen knee, after getting drilled with a shot in Montreal, and next came the biggest blue-line injury, on Nov. 30 at the New York Islanders. Anders Lee ran into Werenski's left shoulder — the surgically repaired one — and caused a sprain of his AC joint that could him keep out another three weeks. That prompted rookie Andrew Peeke to be recalled from the Cleveland Monsters a week ago, and he made his NHL debut Thursday against the New York Rangers. The current pairings are Kukan and Jones, Murray and Savard, and rookies Gavrikov and Peeke. Harrington also played a game before Peeke made his debut, so finding consistency among defense partners hasn't been easy for any of them. The Blue Jackets started the season with eight defensemen and have played nine, leaning heavily on their wealth of organizational depth. “Losing (Werenski's) a big blow to us, but we don't spend much time thinking about it,” Tortorella said. “You go and play, so there's no sense in wasting a lot of thought on it. You get the next guy in that you think is ready to go, (who's) up, and you go play.” This wasn't the plan, though. The plan was to let those six who'd forged ahead drive the Blue Jackets' engine from the back, which hasn't been easy with so much turnover. “I think we've done a pretty good job away from the puck with our back end, with a major injury (Werenski) out of the lineup,” Tortorella said. “It's hurt us offensively for sure, but I think we've done a pretty good job with those injuries in handling it.” His defensemen agree. "When you get so many injuries, you've got change line pairings and all that stuff," Savard said. "It can be hard defensively, but I don't think it's a reason to (struggle). Everybody should know their job." Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 12.12.2019 Never let ’em see you wince: David Savard delights in blocking shots By Aaron Portzline – The Athletic – December 11, 2019 COLUMBUS, Ohio — David Savard is stumped by the question because asking him his earliest memory of blocking shots is like asking him about the first time he wore skates. “I don’t think I ever had to be told to block a shot,” Savard said. “Ever since I started playing hockey, I guess, I’ve just always been a guy that would get in front of pucks. “I know I did it in midget (15 years old). For sure, I was doing it then because the goalies were always laughing that I should wear their equipment. That’s when people actually noticed, but I don’t ever remember not doing it.” This will surprise exactly nobody in the Blue Jackets’ dressing room because nobody has more welts, bumps and bruises by the end of a season than Savard, courtesy of that six-ounce chunk of vulcanized rubber. It can be difficult to quantify the value of a rugged, stay-at-home defenseman like Savard — points don’t tell the story — but one such number has been coming into focus in recent weeks. Savard had three blocked shots in the Blue Jackets’ 5-2 win over Washington on Monday, giving him 766 blocked shots in his 519-game NHL career, believed to be a franchise record. The phrase believed to be is key here, because the NHL didn’t start logging blocked shots until 2005-06 when the league returned after an owner’s lockout wiped out an entire season. (It’s possible, in other words, that former Blue Jackets defenseman Rostislav Klesla would have something to say about this. He’s credited with 544 blocked shots, but that doesn’t count the blocks he would have made in 202 games before 2005.) The Blue Jackets, per a spokesman, are counting Savard as the franchise record-holder — he passed Jack Johnson on Monday — and it just seems wholly appropriate. Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella often incorporates shot-blocking clips into the film he shows players. He did so the other day after Vladislav Gavrikov blocked three consecutive shots — and almost a fourth — in a painful display against Florida. “I’ve never mentioned a word to (Savard) about blocking shots,” Tortorella said. “He’s just there. He is that willing. He always has been that way. Him and Jens (Boone Jenner) I don’t have to say a word to. “There’s more of a want-to with them to block shots than with some other people. If you want to block that shot you find ways to get big. You can turn your body bigger. Other guys get smaller. “With other guys, it’s ‘The coach told me to block this shot.