Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips Nov. 1-2, 2018 Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Josh Anderson wants Jackets to be 'meaner' PAGE 03: Columbus Dispatch: Power play not producing goals, again PAGE 05: Columbus Dispatch: Red Wings 5, Blue Jackets 3: Five takeaways PAGE 08: The Athletic: After flaming out in Arizona and fizzling in Chicago, Anthony Duclair seems to have found a fit with Blue Jackets PAGE 15: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets address slow starts, special teams Cleveland Monsters/Prospects PAGE 17: The Athletic: Black sheep: Charismatic Elvis Merzlikins is a fast-driving Blue Jackets prospect on the road to maturity PAGE 28: The Athletic: Behind the Save: the technical transition that puts Elvis Merzlikins ahead of the rest NHL/Websites PAGE 31: The Athletic: Down Goes Brown: Celebrating Halloween with the all-scary-start team PAGE 37: The Athletic: LeBrun: GMs taking the wait-and-see approach in contract talks with older goalies PAGE 39: Sportsnet.ca: 31 Thoughts: The hidden benefits of NHL’s big gambling bet - Sportsnet.ca PAGE 47: The Athletic: Auditing the grades for the 2016 NHL Draft 1 Josh Anderson wants Jackets to be 'meaner' By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch – October 31, 2018 You don’t see it all the time, but Josh Anderson has certainly proven he’s capable of generating some massive power. Every so often, the biggest Blue Jackets forward unleashes his inner beast and makes some poor guy from the opposing team pay the price. The most recent to experience Anderson’s wrath was Justin Abdelkader on Tuesday at Nationwide Arena. Anderson, 6 feet 3 and 221 pounds, smashed the Detroit Red Wings forward into the glass near the Columbus bench like a big, red bug, one of the few memorable plays for the Blue Jackets in an abysmal first period. “I think we’ve got to be meaner to play against,” Anderson said a week earlier, after winning a scrum for the puck by lifting Arizona Coyotes defenseman Niklas Hjalmarrson off his skates and discarding him into the end boards like a rag doll. “We’re just too soft right now. I think if we come together and play as a team, and win those 50/50s and be a lot more physical, I think that will help our overall game.” The Blue Jackets agree and would like to see Anderson get those fiery eyes going a little more often. He's off to another good start offensively, scoring his sixth goal of the season Tuesday to tie Cam Atkinson for the team lead, but letting his power out consistently is still a struggle. “I have high expectations for myself and I want to have a big year this year, and help this team out as much as I can,” Anderson said. “I’m off to a decent start right now, but I’ve got to keep playing well and be consistent, and maybe start throwing the body around a little bit more than I have been, because I think that will open up a bit more space for myself and my linemates.” The Blue Jackets’ fourth line made a deposit in its account at the John Tortorella Bank and Trust on Tuesday night. The little-used fourth line got more minutes than usual and capitalized, sparking an impressive comeback from a 3-0 deficit in the third. Markus Hannikainen set up the first two goals with great backhand passes, while Lukas Sedlak and Riley Nash helped him create some offensive pressure throughout the period. “They just competed,” forward Nick Foligno said. “They threw pucks to the net. We could learn something from that, especially in a game like (that). That’s what it was going to take to get back into it. Credit to those guys for getting us going, sparking us like that. We just need more of that in our game.” Hannikainen’s second assist set up a goal by defenseman Markus Nutivaara, who scored his first goal of the season. “It was huge for me, personally,” Nutivaara said. “It was a big goal and I wanted to get it done. (Hannikainen) actually looked me eye-to-eye and I was expecting that puck, so it was pretty easy to put in.” 2 Power play not producing goals, again By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch – October 31, 2018 The Blue Jackets struggled so mightily on the power play last season that coach John Tortorella eventually imposed his own moratorium on questions about it. His announcement happened Nov. 27 in Montreal, after a 3-1 loss to the Canadiens. Columbus was ranked last on power plays going into the game and went 0 for 5 at Bell Centre, making them them 6 for 67 overall for a success rate of 9 percent. “I am tired of dissecting our power play,” Tortorella told reporters that night. “We had 10 chances on the power play. Tonight’s problem was we didn’t finish. We developed a lot of scoring chances on it. This is my last night that I’m speaking on the power play, OK, for all of you, because I’m tired of talking about it.” It hasn’t reached that boiling point yet this season, 11 months later, but one gets the feeling the water might be bubbling. Columbus is again off to a rough start, statistically, on the power play. The Blue Jackets are 6 for 44 (13.6 percent) and ranked 26th in the NHL heading into a game Thursday in San Jose to begin a three-game road trip. Home ice is where the struggle is most galling. The Jackets have scored only one power-play goal in 26 opportunities at Nationwide Arena in seven games, and haven’t capped a man-advantage with a goal there since Pierre-Luc Dubois scored at 10:32 of the first period Oct. 9 in a 5-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche. Since that goal, they’re 0 for 22 in power plays on home ice, including 0 for 5 in a 5-3 loss Tuesday to the Detroit Red Wings. The Jackets also gave up their first short-handed goal of the season in that game, which dropped them to 6-5-0. “We see a play there and we feel like we have to make it right away,” said captain Nick Foligno, who’s on the top unit. “It’s like, ‘No, just wait. It’ll come to you. Have a little confidence in your game.’ Right now on our power play, we all just feel like we need to ‘get that goal, get that goal,’ and you know what? We do. Let’s be honest. We need to score goals on the power play.” Going back to last season, the Jackets did improve significantly. They scored on 23.1 percent (25 for 108) of their power plays from Jan. 2 through the end of the regular season, which ranked 12th in the league. That means the talent is clearly there, even if the results aren’t. A comparison could also be drawn between the Jackets’ struggles on the man-advantage and their overall struggle to find a consistent effort level. Rather than bogging themselves down with too many passes, it might help to just start getting some pucks to the net. “Some of the best power plays are the simplest,” Foligno said. “Their skill allows them to make great plays within that structure, but it’s simple plays. It’s not rocket science. Trust me. It’s just, there are some guys who are used to scoring and it’s not going like that right now. So they’re getting a little 3 frustrated, wanting to do things and be the hero. That eats away at your team game, and you’re seeing it on our power play a little bit. You’ve just got to pull back a little bit and let the game come to you.” 4 Red Wings 5, Blue Jackets 3 | Five takeaways By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch – October 31, 2018 The answer remains somewhere else, for now, perhaps floating in space or hidden away in the same closet they keep the Boomer mascot these days. Regardless of its location, the Blue Jackets are still searching for the reason they’re such a turbulent, unpredictable team - saddled with a 6-5-0 record after a befuddling 5-3 loss to Detroit on Tuesday night. There aren’t many adjectives left, that haven’t already been used multiple times, to describe the Jackets’ effort in the first period. They looked sleepy, slow, lethargic, disjointed, disinterested and discombobulated all rolled up into one big ball of disappointment. They gave up a power-play goal 66 seconds into the game, after a pass that went straight to the Red Wings put Detroit on the man-advantage. They gave up a shorthanded goal, watching Dylan Larkin win a foot race to a loose puck and beat goalie Joonas Korpisalo between the pads. They fell behind 3-0 on a goal by Anthony Mantha, who capped a 2-on-1 rush with a wrist shot to the far side. Just like that, Joonas Korpisalo’s night was over, replaced in net by Sergei Bobrovsky. The Red Wings’ early surge was over just as quickly and the Blue Jackets then sprung to life in a flash two periods later, tying it 3-3 in the third on three straight goals. A missed opportunity for Lukas Sedlak, who could’ve put the Jackets up 4-3, preceded Tyler Bertuzzi scoring a game-winner that dealt Columbus another tough loss at home, just like that, to a team that improved to 3-7-2.