Why the Columbus Blue Jackets have been awfully good

Scott Burnside of ESPN.com asks, “Isn’t it time we started to give the Columbus Blue Jackets and head coach John Tortorella some well-deserved love?”

Well, of course. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is watching Blue Jackets fans celebrate an unexpected fast start (10-4-2) from what many felt was a moribund franchise. Love is watching Blue Jackets players thrive under a coach many felt couldn’t guide his team to the locker room urinals, let alone the wild card. Love is seeing Jarmo Kekalainen get a stay of execution in the general manager’s office, because we love Jarmo Kekalainen and want the best for him.

But love for the Columbus Blue Jackets isn’t unconditional.

Let us count the ways this has been an, ahem, awfully good start for the CBJs.

That Power Play

The Blue Jackets defeated the Washington Capitals on Sunday, 3-2, scoring twice on the power play. That snapped a 1-for-16 cold spell, with “cold spell” being a relative term for a team that is absolutely devouring its competition on the man advantage.

Here are the numbers through Monday:

They’re actually tied for fifth in actual power-play goals at 14, but they’re last in the NHL in power-play opportunities at 44 in 16 games. That’s an assassin-like efficiency – if you wanted to project out this hot start on the power play, what would their goal total be with even 14 more chances? (The Boston Bruins are at No. 15 at 58.)

Now, of course it’s going to plummet at some point. No team in the last 30 years has finished the season with better than 30 percent on the power play, and only four teams in the last 16 years have finished above 25 percent – three of them had Alex Ovechkin, and the fourth had Nicklas Lidstrom.

When the Jackets’ power play finally normalizes, the conversation turns to whether a team with 33 5-on-5 goals in 16 games (2.06 per game, vs. 3.38 goals-per-game overall) can overcome the loss of a power-play surplus.

Because they’re shooting above their heads to begin with.

That PDO

As a refresher, PDO is the sum of a team’s on-ice 5-on-5 shooting percentage and their on-ice 5-on-5 save percentage. The greater the distance from 100 you get, the more progression or regression you can expect from a team during the season.

The Jackets’ PDO is currently 103.39, via Corsica, who adjusts for score, venue and zone. That’s third in the NHL behind the New York Rangers (105.26) and the Chicago Blackhawks (104.08).

The Rangers’ shooting percentage thus far is an absurd 12.50. Columbus is second at 9.73. The difference is that the Rangers led the NHL in adjusted shooting percentage last season (9.01) while Columbus finished with a 7.89. Their aggregate shooting percentage from 2013-16 is 7.94

So one assumes the Jackets’ percentage will drop, too.

Unless, of course, they’re the next anomaly…

That Corsi

Tortorella is an infamous possession metric luddite, who recently said he’d “rather spend the time doing than listening to this crap about Corsi and Fenwick, because those stats do not apply,” only when he says “crap” it sounds better than when we do because he’s from Boston.

Well, at the very least, they don’t apply to the Jackets, who have a 48.51 adjusted Corsi, which is No. 23 in the NHL so far this season. Last season it was 48.17. So this is who they are, and this is typically not a good sign for sustainable success.

However, we offer two caveats here.

The first is that, as Scott Cullen noted, there was a significant difference between the Jackets’ Corsi percentage and their scoring chances percentage last season. In fact, the 4.79 variance was the highest in the League. The next two teams behind them were the Pittsburgh Penguins and the San Jose Sharks, whom you might remember from a series in late June.

The second is that there’s always one team that defies what the stats tell us – Patrick Roy’s Avalanche, Randy Carlyle’s Maple Leafs, and so on. The Blue Jackets are in a pack of teams that fit that description this season. So maybe its their turn.

That Coach

John Tortorella, tactically, isn’t a good NHL coach in 2016. He was a terrible fit for the U.S. in the World Cup of Hockey, which to be honest is more symptomatic of USA Hockey’s pathetic genuflecting to Canada’s greatness than anything else. (Grit over skill!) His NHL systems would seem to defy current trends.

It’s no secret that in piling on the Blue Jackets before the season, there was a desire to see Tortorella fail. Some don’t like him as a person. Some don’t like him as a coach. Others just felt that his bluster plus a rebuild in Columbus was a recipe for disaster.

So let me play devil’s advocate here, and say that maybe we were wrong on that last aspect. That, perhaps, John Tortorella does work best when the expectations are low.

Think about his time with the Rangers. Everyone knew these were middling offensive teams propped up by a world class goalie. Their second leading scorer in 2010-11 was Ryan Callahan, for [expletive] sake.

So Tortorella coached them knowing that, getting them to the playoff bubble each season, until expectations arrived in 2011-12: 109 points, three playoff rounds.

Then came Rick Nash in 2012-13, along with some skill players. And Torts was gone after that season. He went to Vancouver. Expectations were high. They were a non-playoff team. He was gone after one season.

So now he’s in Columbus, and things are different. Expectations? Lower than low. Personnel? More workmanlike than skilled at the moment.

Read this on rookie Zach Werenski, from Tom Gulitti of NHL.com:

We imagine this is the kind of leeway other players are getting on a team that was penciled in for the basement but is currently in a playoff spot.

He’s made a few changes that have worked. We’ll assume he has a hand in the 1-3-1 power play formation that’s produced results. But he’s also made some curious changes, like giving Jack Johnson 10 percent more zone starts in the defensive zone despite being a pretty bad defenseman.

For whatever reason, Mount Tortorella has been a bit dormant since leaving Vancouver. Maybe this was a good spot for him.

Well, as long as …

That Goalie

Sergei Bobrovsky has played 15 games and has gone 10-4-1. He has a .931 save percentage and a 2.19 goals-against average, facing 448 shots, which are the third most in the NHL.

As the Montreal Canadiens have reminded us, the confidence that springs forth from a healthy all-world goalie can propel a team. Same goes for the Blue Jackets. Which brings us to the pessimistic news: This is what he does when he’s healthy, but Bob has been injury plagued.

As Bobrovsky goes, so go the Blue Jackets. OK, as Bobrovsky, the power play, their shooting percentage and Tortorella’s act go, so go the Blue Jackets.

But it’s been lovely to watch, so far.
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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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