From THN's Archive: Jackets Must Show, Not Tell

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Jackets Must Show, Not Tell - Adam Proteau - Oct. 21, 2008 - Vol. 62, Issue. 06

IT’S BEEN EIGHT YEARS AND WE HAVEN’T PLAYED A MEANINGFUL GAME IN MARCH

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF people in the world: those who love the blossom and those who love the bloom; those enthralled by the process and those enamored with the processed; those who get their kicks watching the means to an end and those who prefer the end itself.

When you’re the GM of an NHL team, you have to be somewhat of a blend between the two personality types to succeed.

Yes, you must be obsessed with the possibilities of building the sort of on-ice leviathan that has earned the current incarnation of the Detroit Red Wings more laurels than George Lucas receives at a geek gathering.

However, you also have to put forth the effort and handle the stress associated with cultivating a young, inexpensive talent base year after year.

In other words, you need a whole lot of patience to accompany your passion.

Take the Columbus Blue Jackets, for example. Since that franchise’s inaugural season in 2000-01, it has promised improvements while only improving the vagaries of its promises.

In seven seasons, not once have the Jackets qualified for the post-season. Not once have they rewarded their fans for sticking by them through the Lasse Pirjeta-Deron Quint-Robert Kron era.

And here they are again at the beginning of the 2008-09 campaign, delivering a message even team management knows sounds painfully familiar to their customers.

“It’s hard for me (to talk about patience), because I’ve been in the job for only 16 months,” said Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson. “It’s probably easier for me to say something like that, coming in. But it’s been eight years for our fans, and we haven’t played a meaningful game in March.

“Our message has been pretty consistent: We’re trying to build a team the right way. We’re not going to tell you when we’re going to make the playoffs, we just know that if we do the right things and make the right decisions, the results will take care of themselves.

“That’s a tough message for some people to hear, because the expectation level here at times has been high and we’ve failed to meet that.”

Howson – who left a productive gig as Edmonton’s assistant GM in 2007 to replace Doug MacLean – put the wrecking ball to Columbus’ roster this summer, bringing in three veteran forwards (wingers Raffi Torres and Kristian Huselius and center R.J. Umberger) and a trio of experienced defensemen (Mike Commodore, Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman), while jettisoning Jackets mainstays such as Nikolai Zherdev, David Vyborny and Ron Hainsey.

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Combine Columbus’ revamped roster with the fact the Jackets are coming off their best-ever record (34-36-12) and you have another year where the bar has risen in terms of what will pass for success this season.

But Howson knows the team may not necessarily clear that bar.

“You need some luck,” he said, “but you have to build the organization right off the ice. That will make the decisions on the ice better, too.”

Although Howson sees parallels between the small market he works in now and the one he once worked in with the Oilers, there are crucial differences between the two.

“It’s a little different for me here than it was in Edmonton, because even when we didn’t make it, we were always fighting for that last (playoff) spot,” he said. “(In Columbus), we’ve tried to under-promise and over-deliver. We had the best year we ever had last year, but that’s not even close to good enough.”

Most hockey pundits have Columbus finishing out of the playoff mix again this season. And Howson accepts his team will have to prove themselves on the ice before they get the benefit of anyone’s doubt.

“The (Western Conference is tough), the whole NHL is so tough, none of those eight (playoff teams in each conference) are going away easily,” Howson said. “There’s no significant weaknesses on any of those teams, so you have to get better to push one of them out.”

If that’s what the Jackets are able to do, they’ll finally have some steak to go along with brief glimpses of sizzle and far more fizzle. And if Howson can perfect that combination of patience and performance, it won’t take them another eight years for their second post-season berth.

“We’ve got a lot to prove here, especially to our fan base, which has heard all these things before about how good we’re going to be and how we’re improving,” Howson said. “It’s very much a ‘show me’ type of deal for us right now.”

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