Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips August 22-24, 2020 Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets hope playoff series loss is another building block PAGE 04: The Athletic: Blue Jackets’ Kekäläinen, Tortorella still bothered, bitter about season’s end PAGE 08: The Athletic: LeBrun: Pierre-Luc Dubois and the brave new world of second contracts PAGE 11: NHL.com: Blue Jackets plan to build from within, not through free agency, GM says PAGE 13: The Hockey Writers: 5 Costly Blue Jackets Mistakes That Burst Their Bubble PAGE 17: Columbus Dispatch: Jackets chafing after series slips away PAGE 19: Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets front office gets to work on offseason plan PAGE 21: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets can only go so far with current level of offensive skill PAGE 23: The Hockey Writers: Realistic Blue Jackets Expectations For the Offseason Cleveland Monsters/Prospects NHL/Websites PAGE 26: The Athletic: Do we honestly have no better options than Mike Milbury? PAGE 28: The Athletic: Duhatschek Notebook: Realignment might be best hope for a safe 2020-21 season PAGE 35: The Athletic: Down Goes Brown: 6 memorable hockey moments that we may not remember quite right PAGE 39: The Athletic: NHL predictions unplugged: Anonymous scout, coach and exec pick series winners PAGE 42: Sportsnet.ca: NHL and NBA bubble life is challenging, if full of neat quirks PAGE 44: Sportsnet.ca: Quick Shifts: Why contenders should consider trading for Gaudreau PAGE 50: The Athletic: Clark: Is hockey broadcasting at a crossroads? 1 Columbus Dispatch / Columbus Blue Jackets hope playoff series loss is another building block By Brian Hedger – August 22, 2020 In the end, the Blue Jackets learned another painful lesson. The Stanley Cup isn’t coming to Columbus, the Jackets have returned from their travails in the NHL’s Toronto quarantine bubble and a shortened offseason has begun again, too soon for their liking. The Jackets ultimately will view their loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in a five-game series that ended Wednesday as a failure for 2019-20, a campaign that spanned more than 10 months because of the coronavirus. But there is plenty of room for added perspective and growth. "There’s always room (to grow), and I don’t care if you’re a young team or an old team," said Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno, whose goal to spark a rally from a 2-0 deficit in Game 5 wasn’t enough to stave off elimination. "When you don’t get the job done, there’s room to grow. That’s where our team is right now." In truth, it’s where they’ve been since John Tortorella was hired in 2015 as coach. They didn’t make the playoffs in 2015-16, but the Jackets have made it to the postseason every year since — a franchise- record four seasons in a row that includes the historic sweep of the Lightning last year. That was in the first round. The rematch against Tampa Bay technically was in the first round, as well, but not until the Jackets had eliminated Toronto in a qualifying series added when the NHL expanded its postseason to account for the suspension of the regular season in March. Against the Maple Leafs, the Jackets edged another highly skilled team in a five-game thriller. It wasn’t an official series victory, but in reality it was another postseason step for the Blue Jackets, who this season overcame more obstacles than any other NHL team. They lost three key free agents in the offseason, began the season with unproven goaltenders, battled injuries all year — including nearly half the returning roster for lengthy stretches — and then overcame a potentially devastating meltdown in Game 4 against the Maple Leafs to win the deciding game in the series. The Jackets learned a lot about themselves the past 10 months, and did so with a core group of determined veterans, a sizable hodgepodge of rookies, forgotten veterans and duct tape. Liam Foudy, 20, made his NHL debut in two regular-season games and then skated in all 10 postseason games. Alexandre Texier, 20, has now played in two postseasons with the Blue Jackets and was better this year than in 2019 after returning from a fractured bone in his back that ended his regular season on New Year’s Eve. Emil Bemstrom made his Blue Jackets playoff debut, and Kevin Stenlund and Eric Robinson got their first tastes of the NHL’s postseason. Pierre-Luc Dubois, 22, proved he is indeed a No. 1 center to build around, and the goalies — Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins — leave the postseason with personal highs and lows to chew on. 2 Alexander Wennberg played like his former self at times, Oliver Bjorkstrand found his scoring touch against Tampa Bay, Cam Atkinson was productive in the games he was "fit to play," and Zach Werenski and Ryan Murray played well through undisclosed injuries. Seth Jones, meanwhile, put all minds at ease about his surgically-repaired ankle — proving again that he’s one of the elite defensemen in the game. Painful lessons were meted out, too, including those handed to the second defense pairing of David Savard and Vladislav Gavrikov. They were strong against Toronto, but had a tough series against the Lightning — after combining to block 20 shots in the Jackets’ five-overtime loss in the Game 1 heartbreaker. Gavrikov had pucks bounce off his arm and skate that led to the winning overtime goals by Brayden Point in Games 1 and 5, so the opportunity for growth exists there. "We didn’t come out on the right side of a lot of the big moments," Jones said Wednesday, reflecting on a series filled with growing pains. "Both overtime games and some of the big moments when we needed plays, they ended up making them and putting them in our net. "We lose (the series) 4-1, but I think we played a lot better than a 4-1 series." Now, the clock is ticking again for class to resume. 3 The Athletic / Blue Jackets’ Kekäläinen, Tortorella still bothered, bitter about season’s end By Aaron Portzline – August 22, 2020 COLUMBUS, Ohio — It was, by almost any measure, a better season than most anticipated for the Blue Jackets. But two days after they were bounced from the Toronto bubble with a Game 5 loss to the Lightning, general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen and coach John Tortorella were still processing the end of the season. And it wasn’t going well. “You have to be a realist, I get it,” Tortorella said via Zoom from his Galena, Ohio, home. “I get some of that. But it just … the one that bothers me, and it falls on us, is we didn’t protect that lead at the end.” He means Wednesday’s Game 5, when the Jackets were eliminated. The Blue Jackets carried a 4-2 lead well into the third period before recoiling as Tampa Bay found another gear. The Lightning forced overtime with two goals in the final eight minutes and eventually scored in overtime after defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov coughed up the puck in his own end. Tortorella wasn’t as angry as he was postgame when he walked off the dais only two questions into his news conference. But he was still burning hot on Friday, even from the comfort of his home. “You guys asked me a question after the game: ‘Did you manage the clock?'” Tortorella said. “It’s not managing the clock. It’s one team (Tampa) that’s just throwing it at you because they know they have to get back into the game. They’re just coming no matter what. “And the other team (the Blue Jackets) … you just don’t want to make a mistake. It happens to all teams. Both of those things together, you get a little momentum change. To lose it on a freebie, that’s what pisses me off. Listen, those two defensemen (David Savard and Gavrikov) have played so hard. I’m not blaming them, it just aggravates me, even this morning, that we lose it on a freebie. “I wanted to see what it was going to be like if we win Game 5. I wanted to see what Game 6 was gonna be, see how the players react — on both teams, quite honestly. I wanted us to get there. We played well enough to get there, but we didn’t get that done.” Kekäläinen controls his anger better than Tortorella — who doesn’t, right? — but he’s still incredibly competitive. The Blue Jackets hockey-operations staff met on Friday morning to map a course for what figures to be an active offseason. But the GM wasn’t quite ready to put 2019-20 to bed just yet. “We did so many good things in that series,” Kekäläinen said from his home in southern Delaware County. “It’s a bitter pill to swallow that we’re here now. I truly thought, for sure, that we’d be playing (Game 6) tonight. “If it had gone to Game 6, who knows? But I’m not going to get into the ifs and buts and you know whats. The way we played in the second period of Game 5 … it could have been our best hockey of the year. We had 24 shots and we were in their zone the whole period. We get to 4-2 and then lose that lead … it’s hard to swallow right now. I was convinced we were getting into Game 6.” 4 Tortorella didn’t address the Blue Jackets after the Game 5 loss.