The longest tenured player on the Blue Jackets is set to be a healthy scratch in the team’s next game. Matt Calvert, who is reportedly 100% healthy, is going to be riding the pine after a few subpar games. Calvert had been battling the flu bug of late and has missed a game or two due to injury. Why is now the time that Calvert will be scratched? Is this a move that should have been a long time coming?
#CBJ LW Matt Calvert will be a healthy scratch vs. #Hurricanes. "Coach's decision," Tortorella said. Calvert confirms he's 100% healthy.
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) January 20, 2017
After taking a look at the numbers and what Calvert has brought to the table, it is surprising that this move didn’t happen sooner. He is on pace for a career low in points and is having one of the worst shot differential seasons of his career. He is dead last on the team in even strength CF% and has a worse relative CF% than all of his line mates. It may have been the streak or the team’s recent success that blinded us to it, but Calvert is having a very tough year.
Calvert has never been an offensive force. In his best season’s he was just a shade under a .50 point per game player, and injuries have often cut into any streak he has run into. This year despite having a tough time staying on the ice, he hasn’t seen any debilitating injuries. Nonetheless, he is performing under his normal numbers. Could this be a sign of his decline as an NHLer or is this more of an outlier of a season?
His PDO (should’ve placed a warning before using that word in front of Blue Jackets fans) is right in line with the league average. He isn’t getting bad goaltending by any stretch, and if anything his shooting percentage may be a bit low. It’s not like any bump would be enough to make him a twenty goal scorer, it would only end up being about be a goal or two if he was around his normal average.
It doesn’t necessarily indicate that he is over the hill as a player, it just shows that once again that the Jackets have been paying attention to their roster and monitoring it closely for weak points. Calvert has been one, it doesn’t mean that he will stay there forever. This scratch will hopefully be used to kickstart the former Brandon Wheat King.
The differences between a Stanley Cup winning team and a team that makes the playoffs are tiny, little adjustments that allow the team to succeed. For a Jackets team that is hoping to make the playoffs for the third time in team history, they are hoping to not just be a tourist, they want to go far. Making tough decisions like this are the first steps to being a contender for a long, long time.
Step by step, the Jackets are making the right moves. What a strange world we live in.
[Stats courtesy of Hockey Reference and Corsica]Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
