CBJ Today: Laine set to make Blue Jackets debut

Each weekday this season, BlueJackets.com will post CBJ Today, a look at news, notes, analysis and fun stuff from around the Blue Jackets world. It's everything you need to know if you're a fan for the day.

Laine Debuts

Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella confirmed at his morning meeting with the media that Laine will skate for the first time in union blue -- or Reverse Retro red -- tonight when the Jackets take on the Stars.
The debut can't come soon enough for a CBJ team whose scoring and power-play troubles have continued into the opening of the 2021 season (more on that below). The timing is also perfect, as Laine has scored 18 goals in 17 career games vs. Dallas, so you can only imagine what the Stars are thinking right now.
"I've had some pretty good success against those guys, so that's fun to have them in the same division again," Laine said after practice. "Hopefully we can keep that hot streak going, but they have a really good team. They started off really well this year, so it'll be a good matchup."
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But it's also nice from the perspective of it will finally allow everyone to close the book on the Pierre-Luc Dubois situation from the beginning of the season. The trade of the team's 2016 first-round pick dominated the early-season headlines for the team, but now everything will just be about what happens on the ice -- how Laine and Jack Roslovic grow within the team structure and how the Blue Jackets will try to track down their lofty goals for the campaign.
It will take some time for Laine to truly get comfortable, one would think, considering he's yet to take part in a full team practice. Working in such a unique player into the team construct, especially when he hasn't played since Winnipeg's opener Jan. 14, will be a process.
"It all gets figured out," head coach John Tortorella said this morning, noting there was a buzz in the locker room today. "We certainly as coaches show him just a little bit of how we play, our foundation of play, coaches to player, but as far as in the locker room, we had a meeting and I introduced him. Everybody knows him anyway, but I introduced him and welcomed him to the team, but other than that, that stuff will happen as we start playing and he becomes a teammate."
But it's about time to see what happens next -- or as Torts said, "Let's get it going here." With 140 goals in four-plus seasons, Laine should bring plenty of excitement.
And it all starts tonight.

10 Games In...

I'm going to circle back on something I posted after the first couple of games of the season.
In sports, it's always a trap early in a season to extrapolate what's happened thus far as what will happen the rest of the season.
I am as guilty of it as anyone when I watch the teams I root for. Two weeks into a baseball season, I'm ready to decree all of the flaws of my beloved Cleveland Indians to be impossible to overcome (or ready to forecast a World Series if the team gets off to a better-than-expected start).
Moving this to the CBJ realm, it feels like we should be able to draw conclusions about the Blue Jackets now that we're 10 games in. That's especially true now that we're in a 56-game season, so every game is essentially worth a game and a half compared to a normal season.
So if you want to, I can't stop you. It appears Columbus again has a strong defensive team, as the Jackets are fifth in the NHL in penalty kill and 13th in team defense. Scoring has again been an issue with just 23 goals in the first 10 games, a mark that places 28th in the league.
But it's also fair to point out that it often takes a while for a team to truly become itself during a year. Ten games into the 2019-20 season, the Blue Jackets were 5-3-2, a decent start -- but a 6-11-2 run followed that threatened to knock the team out of playoff contention, then points in 24 of 26 games after that, then came the injuries of February. By the end of the year, it was a much different team -- both in personnel and personality -- than it was 10 games in.
In other words, there are lots of ebbs and flows still to come. It's a shortened season, but there's still plenty of time for this team to become the team it will become.

Rocking The Red

For you jersey aficionados out there -- a club in which I consider myself a proud member -- get ready to see the newest Blue Jackets jersey tonight.

The team's reverse retro jerseys, which are set to be worn four times this year, will debut tonight against the Stars. It will be the first red jersey in team history and feature the original CBJ banner logo that was on the front of the first sweaters in franchise history.
The sweaters also will be worn Feb. 20, March 13 and April 6. They're a bit different, but it will be cool to see the old classic crest back on the ice. There have been some pretty sharp Reverse Retro jerseys worn so far -- I'm in love with Minnesota's

-- and I'm excited to see the Jackets' version in action.