Beleaguered Blue Jackets bench Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine as losing streak hits 7

Nothing is going right for the Columbus Blue Jackets at the moment, and their biggest names are suffering.

Beleaguered rookie coach Pascal Vincent benched forwards Patrik Laine and Johnny Gaudreau during the third period of Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the Arizona Coyotes.

This marks the Blue Jackets’ seventh consecutive loss. That losing streak isn’t the only disturbing pattern for this troubled club, either. Over and over again, there are examples of troubling signs from players who should be a big part of the team’s present and future and how the team is handling them.

Blue Jackets haven’t been shy about benching Gaudreau, Laine

Gaudreau didn’t play the final 6:15 of the third period, while Laine sat even longer (9:53). Such benchings would be notable in any context, but raise extra eyebrows because the Blue Jackets were chasing the Coyotes and even had a power-play opportunity during a doomed and desperate rally.

It’s the second time this season Gaudreau’s been benched in such a situation. Laine’s Blue Jackets benchings go back to the days of John Tortorella, a coach who also benched the player Laine was traded for, Pierre-Luc Dubois.

You could say that in-game benchings are something of an ugly tradition for the battered Blue Jackets. Maybe it makes sense, then, that Vincent used similar language each time he benched Gaudreau. After the game, he explained to The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline why he leaned on the likes of Adam Fantilli and Kirill Marchenko instead of Gaudreau and Laine.

“I coach a team,” Vincent said. “I don’t coach individuals. Those guys were going, they’re going to play. That’s what we’ve been doing all year.”

Unfortunately for an already-embattled Blue Jackets front office, they haven’t just been benching seemingly underperforming players all year. They’ve also been losing — both on and off the ice, in the case of the Mike Babcock boondoggle.

For what it’s worth, Fantilli, the third pick of the 2023 NHL Draft, certainly earned his ice time, firing a ridiculous 10 shots on goal. Coyotes goalie Connor Ingram stopped all of Fantilli’s attempts and ultimately stymied the Blue Jackets to extend their losing streak.

A mixture of player failure and iffy management

So, that brings us to a chicken-and-the-egg argument with Columbus. How much of this is on mismanagement, and how much are the players to blame? The least exciting but likely most realistic answer is “both.”

On one hand, Gaudreau’s been limited to a single goal and six points in 17 games, a far cry from last season’s 74 and a calamitous drop from his career peak of 115 in 2021-22. Laine, meanwhile, has been limited to two goals and three points in eight games. You simply expect more from players gobbling up about $18.45M in cap space.

On the other hand, it’s easy to overreact to small sample sizes. Gaudreau, in particular, has been suffering from poor bounces, seen in stats such as shooting percentage and on-ice shooting percentage.

Even if you point a finger at players for failing to deliver, you can’t ignore management stumbles. Beyond the Babcock blunders, the Blue Jackets are making strange decisions with young players.

Portzline detailed how the team bungled things with important prospect David Jiricek, telling him to get an apartment as a full-time roster member, yet giving him the yo-yo treatment between the NHL and AHL anyway. Similarly, the club made 2021 fifth overall pick Kent Johnson a healthy scratch before sending him to the AHL in a contract year.

Maybe Jiricek (sixth overall in 2022) and Johnson simply aren’t up to snuff, but management comes across as scatterbrained at best with how it’s handled the sort of pedigreed players you’d expect to drag you out of the ditch you’ve dug.

It’s the sort of situation where moving defense-allergic Laine to center shrinks from “shrug, I guess they know what they’re doing” to “are the lights on with this team at all?”

However you carve up the blame, the Blue Jackets keep losing and expensive players remain glued to the bench. Eventually, something has to give.