Blue Jackets End of Season Presser

MixtureBill, the longtime General Manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets, stood at the team's podium last Sunday night ready to deliver his end-of-season press conference. "Our team had a successful regular season, but our first round exit of the playoffs is really hanging over the team like a dark cloud right now," the executive said with a disheartened expression. But before he could start his next sentence, the building suddenly went pitch black. "Well, this is unexpected... seems like our power grid needs as much work as our powerplay!" A few light chuckles were heard from the crowd as members of the media turned on their flashlights to light the room. "Actually we were pretty good on the man advantage in the post season, but during the regular season it was as dark as this room at times. Let's get this sorted and we'll come back when we get these lights on."

A week later with the electricity issue now sorted, the media reconvened for the end of season presser everyone has been waiting for. "Obviously we didn't have the finish we were looking for. Being the defending Stanley Cup Champions and going out in the first round, it's a disappointing end to the season." Columbus lost in seven games to the division rival Penguins, who they defeated in seven games the previous season on their way to the championship. "It's always a touch matchup with Pittsburgh. They're built really well from the goaltender out, and they've got a big, bruising defense with guys who play a really physical game. It was a tough series for us, but we need to find a way to win those games, those series. We're not here to be good. We're here to be the best team in the league every year, and that's what we expect from our team."  

After his initial remarks, the conference opened up for the media to ask questions, with the first one coming from Mark Snufferluffergus at the Ohioan Hockeyer blog site, asked the manager through his thick push broom mustache what he thought of his team's regular season. "We had a good regular season. It's tough to not win our division, but we've got some great teams in division, including the Devils who won the Cup the year prior to us, and won our division for three years in a row now. We spent a lot of the year at the top, but just weren't able to hold on down the stretch." Mr. Snufferluffergus followed up asking if there were any standout players in the GM's eyes. "Well Mika and Tage are the obvious standouts, sharing the team lead with 39 goals apiece which landed them in the top 10 of the league, and Quinn on the backend lead the league in assists with 62, so he definitely impressed us this year as well." 

MixtureBill was then asked what his plans for the offseason were, and if he saw any major changes coming to the team. "No major changes planned. We know Svechnikov's name has been out there in trade rumors, and teams are calling so of course we're going to talk and explore all of our options, that's what we do as general managers, but we're not looking to move on from anyone from the core. We are going to look to make a change in net. Darcy Kuemper's contract is up and we have other goaltenders in the organization that we think are ready to take the reigns, so that's really the only planned major change coming to the roster. Otherwise we've got everyone locked up for at least the next two seasons." Carlo Scuttaliarez of Cannon Fodder Hockey followed up by asking coach Todd McLellan if he had a plan for who would start. "At this point we think it's going to be Pyotr Kochetkov. He's really proved himself in Cleveland the past few seasons, and we think he's ready to step up to backstop our pro team. We still have DeSmith as a backup, and we'll have Dustin Wolf as our main starter in the AHL next year." Wally Werchman of Buckeye Blueline asked McLellan if he saw any rookies breaking the pro roster next year. "There are a few, depending on how the roster shakes out we could see Zach Benson, Matthew Poitras, or Wyatt Kaiser on the pro roster at some point, but they'll likely start the season in Cleveland. We'll see, we're still months away from setting the lines."

MixtureBill dismissed the media with one final call back that felt directed more towards other general managers in the league, stating "we'll be available throughout the off-season, working the phones and trying to improve our team in any way we can."