MEDIA CLIPS Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Ottawa Senators November 25, 2019 Columbus Blue Jackets Paul MacLean drawn to work with Blue Jackets coach, young players By Brian Hedger – The Columbus Dispatch – November 23, 2019 One foot was solidly into retirement. Paul MacLean hadn’t coached in the NHL for two-plus years. His life was tilted more toward his family in Nova Scotia, and he began warming to that lifestyle. “I talked to a couple of teams (last summer) about opportunities, and it didn’t work out,” said MacLean, who was hired by the Blue Jackets on Thursday as a full-time assistant coach specializing in the power play. “I turned some things down too, but I always felt I had something to offer. It just had to be the right opportunity.” MacLean, 61, wasn’t going to disrupt his personal life just to get back in the NHL. It had to be a fit he liked and a situation that attracted his coaching instincts. “To be honest, you can be a little bit fussy once you’re out there, spending time with my grandchildren and with my wife,” said MacLean, a veteran coach and former NHL player. “That’s semi-retirement. We started to build a different type of life than we had in the National Hockey League and really felt that was probably the direction we were going in. But I always said that I was retired until my phone rang.” Well, his phone rang a few weeks ago. Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella wanted to gauge MacLean’s interest in joining his coaching staff. MacLean had known Tortorella for a long time as a coaching colleague and liked what his research turned up about the Blue Jackets’ roster, and that’s ultimately what pulled him out of semi-retirement. “This opportunity just seemed like it was going to be the right fit for me,” said MacLean, who was an assistant for three NHL teams and the Ottawa Senators’ head coach from 2011 to ’14. “I have tons of respect for John, so the combination of the potential growth (of the team) and the opportunity to work with him was too much to pass up.” That’s how MacLean became a Blue Jacket, completing a circle that originated when he interviewed for the head-coaching spot in Columbus in 2010, when Scott Arniel was hired. MacLean isn’t wasting time, either. He joined the Blue Jackets on the ice for their morning skate Saturday at Bell MTS Place and had several conversations with players on the two power-play units. He’s back in a coaching role, happily, which means that retirement can wait. “The more and more I dug into it, I was like, ‘This is a great opportunity to teach young players to play in the National Hockey League,’” MacLean said. “And to also have a chance to work with John? I was like, ‘Well, I just have to do this.’” Tortorella kept his forward lines the same starting out against the Winnipeg Jets, which meant that rookie Alexandre Texier played his second game at center and Riley Nash was a healthy scratch. Texier, who started the season at left wing, had a solid game Thursday in a 5-4 victory over the Detroit Red Wings. Centering a line with Nick Foligno at left wing and Cam Atkinson on the right, Texier scored the game’s first goal, finished with three shots and won 5 of 8 faceoffs (63 percent). “Pace,” Tortorella said, when asked what he liked most about Texier’s performance. “Brings pace. He made a couple good plays down low just skating out of the corner with the puck from our defensive end and just skating out of the end zone. It gives him some freedom to get his legs moving all the time.” Texier has played center most of his career, including stints the past two years in Finland. He also played in the middle at the prospects tournament in Traverse City, Michigan, in September, co-leading the Jackets with four goals. After using Texier exclusively on the wing, Tortorella decided to try him in the middle for partly the same reason he did so in 2017-18 with then-rookie Pierre-Luc Dubois. “There’s a lot more responsibility, but you’re covering a lot more ice, so you’re skating a lot more,” Tortorella said. “I’m not sure how long that goes for. We’ll just see where it goes.” After the Blue Jackets’ 5-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, defenseman Zach Werenski awarded the team’s Civil War-era Kepi hat to equipment manager Tim LeRoy, whose older brother, Bill, died on Nov. 1. Bill LeRoy, 56, was in his 18th season as video coach for the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League and died while with the team in Winnipeg. Tim LeRoy went back to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to be with his family after it happened and rejoined the Jackets prior to their game Nov. 15 against St. Louis. Getting the Kepi was a total surprise. “It was incredible,” said LeRoy, who missed the Blue Jackets’ trip to Winnipeg to attend his brother’s funeral services. “I had no idea. I don’t even have words to describe how that felt. We’re really like a family in here because we spend so much time together, so when they did that, it just gave me goose bumps.” Sticking with tradition, LeRoy awarded the Kepi hat to Cam Atkinson after the Jackets’ win Thursday against Detroit — the organization that has the affiliation with Grand Rapids. Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 11.24.2019 Jets 4, Blue Jackets 3 | Late Jets goal kills Jackets’ earlier momentum By Brian Hedger – The Columbus Dispatch – November 23, 2019 WINNIPEG, Manitoba — It was headed for overtime, which would have meant at least a fourth straight game with a point. Things in hockey change quickly, though, which goalie Elvis Merzlikins and the Blue Jackets learned the hard way Saturday night at Bell MTS Place in a 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets snapped a 3-3 tie with 1:54 left in the third period when Andrew Copp gloved Merzlikins’ clearing attempt and put it into the net a second later for the winning goal. It spoiled a good night otherwise for the Blue Jackets (9-9-4), whose three-game winning ended despite going 3 of 5 on the power play with goals by Pierre-Luc Dubois, Seth Jones and Gustav Nyquist. "It’d be easy, but lazy to say we lost because of that mistake at the end (by Merzlikins)," Dubois said, "because we have 60 minutes to win a game and it never comes down to just one minute or one mistake." Merzlikins allowed four goals on 31 shots, and Laurent Brossoit and Connor Hellebuyck combined for the win after Brossoit left the game in the third because of apparent cramping. The first period ended with a 1-1 tie on goals by Dubois and Blake Wheeler. Winnipeg took a 2-1 lead on Nikolaj Ehler’s goal at 5:19, making the Blue Jackets pay for failing to clear a loose puck, but they stormed back thanks to back-to-back penalties on Jets defensemen Tucker Poolman (hooking) and Luca Sbisa (boarding). Sbisa was sent to the penalty box nine seconds after the door closed on Poolman, which gave the Blue Jackets 1:51 of power-play time, starting with a 5-on-3 advantage. Jones tied it on a slap shot at 6:30, ending a 13-game goal drought, and Nyquist put the Jackets in front 3-2 by scoring 47 seconds later off Oliver Bjorkstrand’s rebound. It was the second straight game the Jackets scored multiple power-play goals — they went 2 of 5 in a 5-4 victory Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings — and it was the first time they’d scored three in one game since April 3, 2018, against Detroit. Mathieu Perreault tied it at 3-3 for Winnipeg with 5:17 left in the second. The Blue Jackets also had another good push to start the game, which led to them scoring first for the seventh straight time on Dubois’ team-high 10th goal. A strong shift by power forwards Eric Robinson and Josh Anderson resulted in Sbisa tripping Robinson to give the Blue Jackets the game’s first power play, and Dubois capped it 25 seconds later from the right- wing circle. It took the Jets only 3:24 to counter. Wheeler tied it at 8:23 with a quick shot through Merzlikins’ pads, scoring off a nice pass from Jack Roslovic — who’s from Columbus and played for both the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets and Miami University. Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 11.24.2019 Portzline: ‘Oh, Elvis,’ and nine other observations from the Blue Jackets’ loss to Winnipeg By Aaron Portzline – The Athletic – November 23, 2019 Ten observations from the Blue Jackets’ 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday in Bell MTS Place: 1. Oh, Elvis The Blue Jackets were 1:54 away from a guaranteed road point and a chance to claim their fourth straight win. With the score tied in Winnipeg, the puck rolled innocently toward goaltender Elvis Merzlikins. You might have heard that Merzlikins is unconventional. We’ve seen enough to know he’s got the hint of a riverboat gambler in his DNA. But it also has seemed as if Merzlikins was settling into life as an NHL goaltender, drawing ever closer to his first win.