Five things to know about week one of Blue Jackets camp

Five practice days into summer camp, the Blue Jackets are on their way to answering the biggest questions that faced the team going into the NHL restart.

So where do things stand with the goalie situation, the lineup, and other matters of strategy? The first week gave us some clues, both with what we saw in practice and what head coach John Tortorella had to say.

Here's what we've been able to figure out so far as we head into week two of camp, with a practice set for Sunday morning at the OhioHealth Ice Haus.

On the goalie battle

Columbus has two strong goalies and can only start one in Game 1 vs. Toronto on Aug 2, so you might think Tortorella would be watching intently throughout practice sessions to get a sense of who he'd like to give the nod to.

Well, not quite.

"I haven't even watched them," Tortorella said Wednesday. "I really haven't. I've been a watching a lot of other players. I've had meetings with (goalie coach Manny Legace), but if I watch them, I don't know what I'm watching. I just want them to stop the puck.

"Manny is going to be able to see where the conditioning is. He's doing all the work with them, separate from the team at certain times. I'm going to rely on Manny, and I'm obviously going to be watching more in the scrimmage games and the exhibition game."

In the scrimmages held Thursday and Friday, Elvis Merzlikins gave up a total of two goals, while Joonas Korpisalo ceded three. That's still a small sample size, and Tortorella said the choice is a "coin flip" that will be decided by the bulk of their work over the three-week preparatory stretch.

The two said during interviews last week that it's a friendly competition more than anything else, as the goalies have become close through working together throughout this season.

"Every day we go in there and try to be better than the other guy, and it's healthy competition, which is awesome," Korpisalo said. "Rigt now we go day by day, try to work on our game, conditioning and all the little details. It's fun."

Seth and Z on power play

When the Blue Jackets first worked on special teams Thursday, there was an intriguing sight.

As the first power-play unit took the ice, it included a pair of defensemen in Zach Werenski and Seth Jones along with Gus Nyquist, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Oliver Bjorkstrand.

For most of the 2019-20 season - and those before that - the two standout defensemen were tasked with quarterbacking different power play units. This past season, Werenski generally ran the No. 1 unit - and scored five of his NHL-defenseman-best 20 goals while on the power play -- while Jones ran the second group.

There had been times the two were on the same power-play unit, but it was few and far between. According to Natural Stat Trick, the two played 28:07 of time on the man advantage together, while Werenski had 142:27 on his own and Jones skated 113:25.

But Tortorella sees a reason to have the two of them on the ice together, especially as Columbus tries to improve a power play that placed 27th in the NHL this year at 16.4 percent.

"They read off of one another so well, we want to try them on a power-play unit," the head coach said. "They're going to be on the ice. This is a best-of-five series. I'm putting people on the ice and filling them with ice time if I think they can help us win that particular game because if you don't win that particular game, you're in trouble in a five-game series.

"We're going to get them on the ice as much as we possibly can. Good things happen when they're on the ice together, so we want to look at them as far as the power play."

Through two days of special teams work, the look has generally featured Werenski at the top of the zone with Jones on the left half wall, but Werenski said there are options that can play out during the power play.

"We can switch, we can move, we can read off each other," Werenski said. "If I end up on the half wall, I'm on the half wall. It doesn't really matter, which I think is why I like having me and him there. We just work so well together in terms of reading off each other and jumping into plays and getting into certain areas.

"I think the most unpredictable power plays are the hardest ones to stop because you don't know what is going to happen, so if we can start moving around, zipping the puck around, finding each other and working off each other, I think it could work really well."

Foudy earns a chance

Tortorella says rookie forward Liam Foudy, who has a grand total of two NHL games under his belt, doesn't yet have his name written in pen when it comes to the CBJ lineup for the postseason.

But the first week made it clear the 20-year-old is going to be given every chance to make it. After starting on a line with Riley Nash and Eric Robinson on Monday, Foudy spent the rest of the week playing with Blue Jackets veterans Nick Foligno and Boone Jenner.

What's on Foudy's side? Speed, and lots of it, and Tortorella has said his biggest message to the tremendous athlete who tore up the OHL this year is to use those legs as much as possible.

"I don't care about mistakes he makes," Tortorella said. "That's why you play as a team. That's why you're in support positions in case of mistakes. I just want to allow himself to play. I have him with Jens and Nick right now. Not sure if it stays that way or. Not, but I want to give him an opportunity to make this team because of his speed. We're playing a very fast hockey club. We need to get as much speed in our lineup as we possibly can."

Foudy made a two-game cameo with the Blue Jackets in February, making his debut vs. Tampa Bay and then topping 17 minutes in a game at Buffalo in which he earned his first NHL points, an assist. He would have played more with Columbus but the NHL's agreement with the Canadian junior leagues meant his availability was limited, and Foudy was a man among boys back home with 68 points in 45 games with London.

Tortorella has so much respect for the game Foudy showed during his debut with Columbus that he inserted him with the group of CBJ regulars for the start of training camp. Foudy hopes to keep that momentum going as the actual games near.

"That was exciting to see knowing that the staff has confidence in me to be in that first starting group here," Foudy said. "Having that going into camp was a huge confidence booster, and here in camp I'm trying to keep playing my game. That's what got me on that first roster spot, so I'm just trying to keep playing the way I am, hold onto it and keep going."

Defense first attitude

It's no mistake how the Blue Jackets won hockey games this year.

Columbus finished third in the NHL with just 2.61 goals allowed per game, and when the Blue Jackets were at their best, they smothered teams, forcing turnovers and limiting odd-man rushes to keep the danger against their net to a minimum.

The question is whether Columbus can recapture that style of play in a two-week training camp after four months off the ice. It's no secret goals are often harder to come by in the Stanley Cup Playoffs than they are in the first two months of the season; is it because of all the defensive chemistry teams build over the course of a season, or is it more because of the concentration and intensity of the playoffs?

We'll find out when Columbus faces Toronto, which is third in the NHL in goal scoring, and Tortorella said the team has spent time in practices so far working on regaining the defensive structure - being "above the puck" -- that was so good throughout much of the regular season.

"The 25-minute practice prior to the scrimmage (on Thursday and Friday) is to go over some of our team concept as far as what we're looking for," Tortorella said Friday. "We did some defensive zone coverage today. We've talked about being above the puck. Those other little 20-25-minute sections of our practice is to teach that so they can bring it into the scrimmage."

For his part, Jones said he didn't think it would be hard to bring that style of play back.

"I don't think it should take a whole lot of time," Jones said. "I think this is the identity we've had over the course of a few years now. It's just buying into the way we play the game and being mentally sharp. We are a team that prides ourselves on not cheating on that side of the puck and searching for offense. We like to play from the back end out."

The lineup is...

OK, it's too early to write anything in pen, and Tortorella said the coaching staff continues to have a few spots up for grabs in its mind when it comes to what the lineup will look like Aug. 2 when the puck drops against Toronto (the back end of the defensive lineup is one of those big questions, the head coach said).

But Columbus has used the same lines for most of the first week of practice, and there's something to be said for consistency. So with the caveat plainly stated that things can change any day, here's what we've seen thus far, if it provides any indication of what things will look like against the Maple Leafs.

Alexandre Texier - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Oliver Bjorkstrand

Gustav Nyquist - Alex Wennberg - Cam Atkinson

Liam Foudy - Boone Jenner - Nick Foligno

Eric Robinson - Riley. Nash - Emil Bemstrom

Zach Werenski - Seth Jones

Vladislav Gavrikov - David Savard

Ryan Murray - Dean Kukan

So there you go. We'll be back at the rink for practices Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before an off day Wednesday. Thanks for following along.