Raise the standard, achieve consistency

In 21 games, the Blue Jackets have built up an impressive 12-5-4 record, good enough for eighth in the NHL and fourth in the Metro Division.
They are only a quarter of the way through the season and head coach John Tortorella knows the process is not complete; he's still looking for his team to cement its identity, for the club to get where it needs to be.
"I know we've climbed the ladder here," Tortorella said. "We talked about it right at the beginning of the year about our standard of play, the accountability factor of how you play, how you practice. We discussed 'do you go in and test the water and hope you're going to win, or do you go in there and you have some swagger and you know you're going to get it done?'"
For Tortorella, the answer to that question doesn't lie in a magical event, or a certain number of wins. Success and confidence both come from consistency in all aspects of play.
"We've talked about 'safe is death," Tortorella said. "'Safe is death' is not just with the puck and trying to make plays. 'Safe is death' is going forward, not skating backwards; trying to check people forward and jamming that neutral zone. That whole mentality of day-by-day, getting more consistent."
Tortorella is quick to point out that this young Blue Jackets team has yet to face "the dog days" of January and February that come in an NHL schedule. Ultimately, it's how this team responds to inevitable future challenges that will further indicate consistency (or lack thereof).
"I have to have a feel in my stomach that (the team's play) is an instinct, that it's not always thinking about it, that it's instinctive," Tortorella said. "It starts more when you are getting that instinct when you start having some troubles, and trying to get your game back at certain times.
"Every team goes through it during the year. Where you struggle for a number of games and you try to get it back. I want to see it play out."
The early signs are encouraging as Tortorella watches the progress of his group, and that success has developed beyond the win-loss ledger.
The chart below shows a rolling average of the percentage of shot attempts taken by the Blue Jackets this season, according to Corsica.hockey. The larger share of shot attempts a team has per game, the more likely they are to score goals, and thus the more likely they are to win games. Columbus has slowly built an upward trend even as it entered divisional play on Nov. 15.

With a 10-0 win over Montreal and 8-4 victory over St. Louis, it's possible for naysayers to challenge that the Blue Jackets' success is just luck - however, we can examine the team's luck by exploring PDO.
PDO is a measure that combines a team's shooting percentage and save percentage. NHL clubs tend to hover around 100 on average. A high PDO suggests "puck luck" that might not be sustainable; a low PDO, a lack of "puck luck" might rebound over time. In short, we shouldn't expect abnormally high or low shooting or save percentages to persist over the course of a season.
Below, using data from Corsia.hockey, we can plot the Blue Jackets' rolling average PDO. We see they are, in fact, coming off their PDO highs and normalizing towards a more sustainable 100 measure.

There's no due date for when the Blue Jackets will truly define who they are, but the team may just be on its way.
"I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here," Tortorella said. "I'm very happy with the team and how they've handled themselves, but let's slow down here, it's every day at a time."
There's a lot of hockey left to play. The Blue Jackets have matched up against divisional opponents just three times so far, but to captain Nick Foligno, the early season successes suggest that the team is on the path to consistency.
"To have the success that we are having early on just proves the work we put in was for something," Foligno said. "It's a good feeling in here and guys have really bought in because of it. You need success to build confidence and to understand the identity you need to have.
"I'm really happy that we're having this early success but I think every guy knows we need to continue, that it can't just be ok, we're happy with where we're at, because it's never good enough."
All data and visuals from Corsica.hockey unless otherwise stated.