Merzlikins in the spotlight as the Blue Jackets enter the stretch

About a month ago, Elvis Merzlikins waded into the Caribbean and let it all out.
The frustration of a difficult season had weighed on him and weighed on him, and with the Blue Jackets in the midst of their All-Star break in early February, the goaltender and his wife Aleksandra headed to the beach.

Amid the sun and the surf, Merzlikins was able to hit the reset button, but first he had to let some of the disappointment go.
"It was a tough start to the season," Merzlikins said. "It's not what I wanted, and it's hard to forget it. It hurts. I think the All-Star break was great, going with my wife on vacation. Even if I did not deserve it, I still went because my wife deserves it with my son. She needed to relax more than I do. So I was just kind of her backup friend to talk to on the island.
"But honestly, sitting by the beach and looking in the ocean and reading a book, it gave me that release, like, stop thinking about what the hell is going on. And I did it my way. I screamed in the middle of the ocean, let it out everything -- tears, screaming, everything."

Merzlikins is quick to point out he also spent his break getting ready to resume the season, but that mental release seems to have paid dividends. There's no hiding from the numbers -- Merzlikins' 4.15 goals-against average and .879 save percentage are near the bottom of the league -- during what has been the toughest season of his career, but the goalie saw a path back to becoming the player he wants to be by letting go a bit.
It had been a tough spiral throughout the opening half of the season, as he was caught in a bit of a finger trap -- the harder he tried to pull out of it, the more he was stuck. At the goalie position, one has to let the game come to them, and Merzlikins was getting into more trouble the harder and harder he tried to get out of his slump.
His new approach of just playing and letting things fall where they lie has led to some recent success, with Merzlikins posting a .912 save percentage in his first six games after the All-Star break. Included in that span were consecutive outings with more than 40 shots against, as he stopped 41 pucks in an overtime loss to Minnesota, then came back with 38 saves two days later in a win at Buffalo.
"I feel pretty confident," Merzlikins said. "I am controlling my game. The game is not controlling me anymore. That's a huge difference, I think. And yeah, I just have to keep working and keep doing what I am doing right now with the same mind-set, similar work ethic to what I am doing right now and just keep playing the games."
For the Blue Jackets, there's certainly quite an incentive to get Merzlikins back to the goalie with game-changing potential that he showed in 2019-20, when he finished fifth in the voting for the Vezina Trophy in his first season in the league, as well as in flashes through the past two seasons.

The Latvian goaltender is in the first season of a five-year contract, with the Blue Jackets inking him to an extension in September 2021 after the impressive start to his career. In addition, Columbus traded the longest-tenured goalie in franchise history, Joonas Korpisalo, to Los Angeles a week ago, clearing the way for a duo of Merzlikins and youngster Daniil Tarasov to man the nets next season.
A year ago, Merzlikins finished strong, and the hope was that would be a springboard into a successful 2022-23 season. While the goalie has had to fight his ups and downs this year, the Blue Jackets and coach Brad Larsen hope the improvement in Merzlikins' play continues in the last 19 games, as he figures to get plenty of playing time.
"Just continuing what he has done the last several weeks," Larsen said when asked what he wants to see out of Merzlikins down the stretch. "I think he's found a rhythm to his game again. I think he looks more confident to me. He looks more like himself, and we're gonna need that more and more here."
The trade of Korpisalo and Vladislav Gavrikov to the Kings does leave Merzlikins in a new spot. He first met Korpisalo at the team's summer prospect development camp after he was drafted in 2014, and the two by and large were the team's goaltending duo since the start of the 2019 season.
While there was plenty of competition between the two, they and goaltending coach Manny Legace also had their fair share of fun at practice, with the goalies always pushing each other to get better and chatting during media timeouts to try to point out how they could improve.
"He was my first roommate in dev camp," Merzlikins said of Korpisalo. "Already there, we had such a good relationship. It's a business. I'm happy for him. I'm sad -- obviously I'm going to miss him and miss Gavy as well, but Korpi, I owe him a lot. I've known him a long, long time. It was always us together trying to get better and trying to help win the games for this team and this organization."
But now with Korpisalo having been traded, Merzlikins will be looked at as the calming force and the veteran leader of the goaltending unit for the time being and into the future. It's something the 28-year-old is looking to embrace, even if he still feels plenty young at heart.
"I do not yet feel like a veteran," he said. "Even my wife told me I am not a kid anymore. I am 28, 29 soon. Soon it's 30. I need to get used to not being a kid anymore. Maybe veteran is a little bit exaggerated. I feel way too old if you call me a veteran. But yeah, it's going to be a huge responsibility.
"I need to finish this season and then try to change my routine in summer preparation. I need to change the start of the season. Obviously I'm not happy with what I had this year. But that's the past. I'm not going to look back, I am just going to get ready this summer for next season."