The Blue Jackets Are The Fun Kind Of Bad Team

The Columbus Blue Jackets play hockey like they're skating on some sort of ice treadmill: You see a lot of effort, but they don't actually go anywhere. This is a squad that always listens to those jamokes in the stands who yell shooooot, playing a fast and loose style that has them both third in the league in shots taken and third in the league in shots allowed.

If you want that aesthetic to win games, ideally you need both of two things: top-class finishers who convert more of their chances than the other team, and a steady goaltender to cover all the action in front of him. Right now, the Jackets don't have the skaters, and they don't really have the goaltending, yet, so even though it might be tiring to play against them, they're one of the easier teams in the NHL to get a win against. These action-heavy games set Columbus apart as an especially entertaining cellar-dweller.

The Blue Jackets, historically, are the least successful team in the NHL, and even after a quarter century of existence they're still struggling to shake the expansion-franchise blues. For five years in a row they've missed the playoffs. However, last season was by far the most promising. They padded their stats a bit with a high-scoring six-game win streak to close out the year, but under new head coach Dean Evason they showed some real moxie. There was no real defense to speak of outside of the perpetually overworked Zach Werenski, but the forward group was populated by the kind of under-25s that signal a new dawn. Lottery picks Adam Fantilli and Kent Johnson combined with diamonds-in-the-rough Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov to form a relatively dangerous attack that was actually pretty efficient with its opportunities. After some truly horrifying goal differentials in years prior, Columbus finished the season plus-five, piquing the curiosity of those who hadn't completely forgotten the franchise existed.