Heading into his first full season as the Columbus Blue Jackets captain, Rick Nash has learned to accept the fact that he is now considered a senior statesman on the club.
Then again he's only 24 years old. That means the 2002 No. 1 overall pick is still a kid, one who by his own admission feels like he's in a candy store for the first time since he joined the Jackets in 2002.
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| R.J. Umberger is one of several quality players the Blue Jackets have acquired. (Getty Images) |
Not coincidentally, that was the first full season under a new regime in Columbus. Coach Ken Hitchcock, a Stanley Cup winner in Dallas had taken over at Thanksgiving the season before, while general manager Scott Howson was hired in the summer of 2007 to replace Doug MacLean, the man in charge of the club since its debut. The newcomers made some modest tweaks before the season began, but really started putting their stamp on the club at the trade deadline by dumping expensive and disaffected veterans Sergei Fedorov and Adam Foote.
But the process really hit full stride during the summer when Columbus underwent its most significant offseason overhaul ever.
"It was pretty exciting when we all got here before camp and had to start introducing ourselves," said Nash, who scored 38 goals and a career high 69 points last season. "I know I have a lot of responsibility for taking this team to the next level -- that's why they made me captain -- but I think we're also built for that this year. It's a really good thing for us to get all these new faces around here. We brought in some good talent and it gives us a new vibe."
Not to mention some legitimate hope for a change. Columbus heads into its eighth NHL season with the dubious distinction of being the league's only club never to have made the playoffs, but after the retooling effort this summer, snickering isn't necessarily the first response to those who believe the Jackets can make a real run at a postseason spot.
"Actually I thought we were close for a while last season, but we weren't really consistent and we had some injuries," said Nash. "But you could sense that other teams were taking us more seriously and that we were tougher to play against."
They were, at least to some extent, because Columbus did have the NHL's eighth best defense and goaltender Pascal Leclaire, another former first round draft pick, finally came into his own while leading the league with nine shutouts. But Columbus had little offense to speak of outside of Nash, finishing second worst in scoring overall, which made improving that part of their game the top priority for Howson this summer.
"We wanted to add to our forward mix," Howson said.
Howson didn't succeed in acquiring the No. 1 type center he was after, but he did sign free agent Kristian Huselius, a high scoring winger who spent the last three seasons with Calgary and traded for center R.J. Umberger, a playoff scoring star for the Philadelphia Flyers last spring. Raffi Torres, a hard hitting power forward who made a name for himself during the Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup run in 2006, was brought on board as well, although he will be on the shelf for the first six weeks after separating his shoulder during Monday night's exhibition game against Chicago.
Equally important, Columbus gets Fredrik Modin back in the lineup after he missed all but 23 games last season with injuries, and veteran Michael Peca is around for another season to help fill out the top two lines, which will have a couple of spots open for recent first round picks like Derek Brassard, Jakub Voracek and Nikita Filatov.
Still, the Blue Jackets' most notable improvement may be along the blue line, where the team added veterans Mike Commodore through free agency, and Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman through trades. They'll join youngsters Rostislav Klesla, Ole-Kristian Tollefsen and Kris Russell, giving Hitchcock more size in the backend and the kind of depth and grit he felt was lacking last season.
The challenge though is getting everyone on the same page.
"Every player who was here last year knows how much better we are, but when you have eight or nine new faces, that's pretty big and you have to find a way to develop chemistry really quickly," Hitchcock said. "The nice thing is that we have a really good core group of leaders that we didn't have before and that's going to make a difference.
"It has to, because nobody who made the playoffs is going to run and hide this season. We're going to have to earn it."
