BSH Roundtable: Who were the biggest individual disappointments? Who can turn it around?

All I can think to say is that it was a really bad, almost back stabby feeling. You get all hype for this playoff run after ANOTHER injury riddled season and somehow it seems like the club took steps back instead of forward. Again. But is there a chance for a turn around? Ask Lake Erie. Because hot damn.

Alison Lukan (@AlisonL):

The players I think had the most disappointing seasons were Nick Foligno and Sergei Bobrovsky. Both take their roles very seriously within the team, and both fell short of arguably their – and fans’ -expectations this year. Foligno produced only half the total points and a little over a third of the total goals he generated last season, and his shooting percentage dropped to 9.1% after rising to the heights of 14.7% and 16.3% in the two previous years. Foligno also found himself shuffled around in the lineup and had to heal from a concussion suffered at the hands of Carolina’s Brad Malone. But that being said, Foligno remained in the top six as far as ice time, was the most frequently used forward when the team was down 2 or 1 (Tortorella places importance on “momentum” players who can manage the effort needed to respond in such situations), and was not sheltered in terms of his zone starts which alludes to a good confidence in him going forward. That makes sense. As our own Matt Souva has explained, Foligno is due for a nice rebound next season and I think we do see that from him as he doesn’t strike me as a player who takes no lessons from a season like this. As for Bobrovsky, he saw his lowest even strength save percentage (.915) since the 11-12 season and battled two groin injuries resulting in only 37 games played this year. The Vezina winner fell out of the conversation of elite, game-stealing goaltenders for the first time in his tenure in Columbus. But will he rebound? I believe he will. This is a man with a work ethic like none other, and I think the organization is learning some tweaks to how they will manage his physical effort to aid in the injury occurrence.

The Coach (@TheCoach_BSH):

Bob and Foligno definitely were disappointing in terms of their ultimate contributions to the team this season. However, Bob was great for stretches during the year, he just had that terrible start and the usual string of injuries. Foligno was a very good player in most ways this season, with the notable exception of putting/helping to put pucks in the net. The name who disappointed me the most on the ice this season is one I haven’t seen bandied about much: Jack Johnson. He had a lot of off-ice strife this year, but he was definitely unable to find any solace at the rink. He missed 22 games this year, so obviously his totals would drop, but his standard stats, rate stats, and fancy stats are all down. He finished at or near a career low in pretty much every category. In the past he always had decent looking traditional stats but poor possession stats. This season, he was among the bottom third in defensemen in nearly every category you can think of, at even strength, on the powerplay, and on the penalty kill. Really the only stat that wasn’t at a third pair/non-NHL level was time on ice. In the past Johnson was a player who I felt could contribute to the team in many ways, he was simply being overused at even strength and on the PK. This season, it’s tough to argue he was playing at an NHL caliber level.

Paul Berthelot (@PaulBerthelot):

I went a different direction with this. The biggest disappointment for me this season was the trade deadline. The Jackets do not have a lot of picks nor a great cap situation going forward. I felt like the trade deadline would give them a chance to both get out of a bad deal or two while replenishing the cupboard. Names like Hartnell and Tyutin were floated around, and whether the Jackets were asking for too much or teams were offering too little I don’t know, but it was disappointing to not see a deal get done. Going forward now with a year less on these deals, perhaps there is more interest in them. Hopefully at the draft, or some point during the off-season, the team is able to shed some money and acquire lost picks.

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