The full gamut of emotions was felt inside Nationwide Arena on April 27, 2013.
There was anticipation. There was stress you could cut with a knife. There was, for a bit, elation. And then, in the end, there was disappointment.
It was a night unlike any other in the history of the Blue Jackets franchise, as a sellout crowd packed the downtown barn hoping to see their team win and clinch just the second playoff appearance in team history.
While capping one of the most inspiring stretches of hockey in team history, the Blue Jackets got only halfway there. A dramatic 3-1 victory – the eighth in the team’s last nine games – over Nashville pushed the Jackets past Minnesota for the final wild card spot, and CBJ fans and players could taste postseason hockey.
But in the end, the flavor turned bitter. As thousands of fans watched on the arena’s video board – and CBJ players did the same from the locker room in full gear – Minnesota finished off a win at Colorado that tied Columbus in the standings. The tiebreaker belonged to the Wild. Despair – and anger – set in at Nationwide Arena as the reality that the season was over hit hard.
“I remember we won that game and the building was going nuts and we were all pumped up; we felt like we were going to the playoffs,” defenseman Jack Johnson said. “We were watching the tiebreaker, and I remember we had the game on in the locker room. We didn’t even have our gear off and we were watching the end, and it was almost like we had just lost a playoff series.”
But all was not lost amid the disappointment. Not only had the Blue Jackets invigorated the fan base after a tough stretch, they set in motion the most successful stretch in team history. Such mainstays as Johnson, Nick Foligno, Brandon Dubinsky, Cam Atkinson and Sergei Bobrovsky would go on to put their stamp on the franchise, becoming some of the top players in team history after helping spur the end-of-season run.
One year later, the Blue Jackets fulfilled their promise of bringing postseason hockey back to Columbus, kicking off a stretch of five playoff appearances in seven years. It all started when a ragtag group of players thrown together to turn around the fortunes of the franchise realized what might be possible if they stuck together and dedicated themselves to bringing a winner to the capital city.
“I think it made us believers and the fans believers of what we were doing and the group that we had put together,” Foligno said. “I think we just felt like we had the right pieces in place and guys that were hungry to be a part of this.
“Honestly, it’s no knock on any other team, but we had the right mix of guys that really wanted to be Columbus Blue Jackets and really understood the opportunity that we had in front of ourselves.”
Turning The Page
Columbus got its first taste of playoff hockey in 2009 when Rick Nash led the way, scoring the goal that clinched the postseason berth. But after getting swept in the first round by Detroit, the Blue Jackets couldn’t build on that momentum.
Three straight last-place finishes in the Central Division followed, and 2011-12 was one of the toughest seasons in franchise history. A blockbuster trade to bring in center Jeff Carter to give Nash a standout pivot failed to work out, and Carter was traded to Los Angeles for Johnson after just 39 games with the Blue Jackets.
As the summer of 2012 began, a potential work stoppage loomed over the NHL, but there were bigger problems in Columbus. After years of being the face of the franchise, Nash was on the trading block, and following months of speculation, the deal came together July 23. Nash would be headed to the New York Rangers in exchange for a package that sent Dubinsky, forward Artem Anisimov, prospect Tim Erixon and a first-round pick back to Columbus.
That was far from the only deal general manger Scott Howson made to reshape the team. Acquiring Johnson from Los Angeles in the Carter deal the previous February gave the Jackets a minutes-eating defenseman, while the biggest move came at the draft in June when the Blue Jackets traded for Bobrovsky, sending a trio of draft picks to Philadelphia to add a young goaltender who had shown flashes of talent in two seasons with the Flyers.
Another huge piece of the puzzle was added July 1 when Howson sent defenseman Marc Methot to Ottawa for Foligno, a dependable two-way forward who had put together some solid seasons with the Senators to start his career. Add in the signing of veteran defenseman Adrian Aucoin in free agency and there were plenty of fresh faces due in Columbus for the start of the season.
“We had a bunch of guys that were also traded around the same time, and we kind of came in and made a decision that we were gonna come in with the right attitude and try to help and make the team better,” Dubinsky said. “There were a lot of new guys and new faces in the locker room, and it was a group of guys that came from everywhere else and felt like Columbus was a place that wanted us all.
“We wanted to make Columbus proud. We obviously had a great city, great fan base, and we wanted to create something special here.”
They only needed a season to do it. The beginning of the 2012-13 season was delayed because of a lockout at the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement between the players and teams, but unlike eight years earlier, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The sides continued to negotiate, and on Jan. 6, commissioner Gary Bettman announced a deal as well as a 48-game season that would begin later that month.
Coming Together
There were many new faces, but some old standbys returned to help bring everyone together on head coach Todd Richards' team.
Forwards Jared Boll, Derek MacKenzie and Derek Dorsett were in their sixth seasons with the squad, while Derick Brassard, R.J. Umberger and Fedor Tyutin were all in year five with the team. Mark Letestu and Vinny Prospal had been added the year prior and become key pieces of the attack, while James Wisniewski and Nikita Nikitin were also in their second years on defense. In addition, youngsters like Cam Atkinson, Ryan Johansen and Matt Calvert were becoming everyday players and putting their stamp on things.
As the season began, the Blue Jackets weren’t expected to be contenders given the radical overhaul to the roster, but Johnson and others knew something good could be in the cards.
“We all knew that we had some good players, and even if we were written off by the experts, we knew we were gonna be better than people thought,” Johnson said. “We knew we had a great shot at the playoffs – not only making the playoffs, but we felt like if we got in, we were gonna be a lot of trouble for some teams.”
The season started on a high note, as the Blue Jackets traveled to Nashville, a building in which the team had won just five times in 35 previous tries. Foligno and Anisimov scored in their CBJ debuts and Bobrovsky stopped 32 shots before the game went to a shootout; there, the new goalie denied five of six tries by the Predators and Brassard tallied in the sixth round to give the Blue Jackets a 3-2 victory.
A shootout loss to the Red Wings in the home opener two days later gave the Blue Jackets three out of four points to begin the season, but the team fell into a deep slump from there. Columbus went 4-12-3 in its next 19 games, putting the Blue Jackets squarely in last place in the Central Division. Amid the struggles, president of hockey operations John Davidson – hired in October – made a big move, replacing Howson with Jarmo Kekalainen, who became the NHL’s first European-born general manager.
As the team jelled, the results changed for the better at the start of the March. A 2-1 overtime win March 3 vs. Colorado kicked off a four-game homestand that featured four victories, and the sense that the Blue Jackets were gaining confidence came during a Saturday matinee that ended the stretch.
Columbus welcomed a Detroit team that had traditionally been a thorn in its side, but the Blue Jackets’ 3-0 victory would prove to be a memorable one outside of goals from Atkinson, Johnson and Foligno and 30 saves from Bobrovsky in his first CBJ shutout. With the Blue Jackets holding that 3-0 lead with under seven minutes to go, Prospal emerged from a heated discussion with Detroit forward Justin Abdelkader and mockingly pointed at the scoreboard.
The veteran Czech forward earned a 10-minute misconduct for his action, but it became an iconic moment in team history, as well as a rallying point for the fan base. It helped that the Blue Jackets just kept adding points, finishing March with a 10-2-4 record as Bobrovsky cemented himself as the No. 1 goalie on the way to a Vezina Trophy campaign.
Columbus lost two of three to open April, but the playoffs were within striking distance, and Kekalainen did what he could at the trade deadline April 3 to help the squad. The biggest move was the acquisition of forward Marian Gaborik from the Rangers in a deal that sent Brassard and defenseman John Moore to New York, while Kekalainen also acquired forward Blake Comeau from Calgary and sent goaltender Steve Mason to Philadelphia.
The Blue Jackets restored their on-ice momentum with home wins over San Jose (4-0) and St. Louis (4-1), leading into a do-or-die six-game road swing with seven games to play. The contests weren’t for the faint of heart, as the first three went to overtime.
The Blue Jackets began the swing with a 3-2 shootout win at Minnesota thanks to Atkinson’s deciding goal, then won 4-3 in overtime at Colorado thanks to Umberger’s tying goal with 1:27 to go and Foligno’s OT winner. Another OT win followed, as Tyutin tallied in extra time to give the Blue Jackets a 4-3 triumph at Anaheim.
A 2-1 loss to Los Angeles followed, but the Blue Jackets got back to their winning ways in San Jose, with Johansen scoring with 1:37 to go to give Columbus a 4-3 win. Letestu and Atkinson then broke a 1-1 tie in the third as the Jackets closed the trip with a 3-1 victory at Dallas, setting up one final home game vs. Nashville.
Triumph, Then Disappointment
April 27 was a warm, partly cloudy spring day in Columbus, and a bit of Columbus history was made a few miles north when the scoreboard at Crew Stadium caught on fire before the soccer team’s game that night.
There were no such worries at Nationwide Arena, though; just a jam-packed crowd of 19,002 who came out to see if the Blue Jackets could qualify for the postseason. Tied for the last playoff spot with Minnesota, they would need a win over Nashville and some help, as the Wild held the tiebreaker going into its game vs. last-place Colorado. Columbus also held an outside chance of passing Detroit, which was one point ahead of the Blue Jackets going into the day’s action.
The Predators were also out of the postseason race, but that didn’t mean Nashville wouldn’t give a game effort. Nationwide Arena was loud but also anxious, sensing how much the moment meant, and the tension built as Columbus carried play throughout the game but couldn’t beat goalie Chris Mason.
The mood got even worse when Nashville took a 1-0 lead near the midway point of the game when Shea Weber beat Bobrovsky from the right circle. The Predators’ lead held through the second period, and the Blue Jackets would be playing for their season in the final frame.
Understanding that, they rose to the occasion, outshooting the Preds by a 25-5 margin in the third and finally getting one past Mason with 9:51 to go on the power play. Dubinsky was the goal scorer, taking a feed from Gaborik in the slot and shoveling a backhander past the Nashville goalie.
Then, with 4:48 to go, Johnson gave the Blue Jackets the lead, thanks to a tremendous play by Atkinson. The young forward protected the puck below the goal line, skated out toward the left corner and dropped the puck to Johnson, who dipped behind the net and centered a pass toward Dubinsky that went off Weber’s skate and bounced past Mason for the tiebreaking goal.
