As part of the team's 20th anniversary celebration, BlueJackets.com is publishing recaps of each of the team's previous 19 seasons, presented by Nationwide and OhioHealth. Today, the series continues with a look at the 2008-09 campaign, the franchise's eighth season in Columbus.
April 16, 2009, was the day Blue Jackets fans had waited for since the franchise's inception.
The entire point of fielding an NHL team is to chase for the Stanley Cup, and the first seven seasons of Blue Jackets hockey delivered mostly frustration in that regard.
#CBJ20 Year in Review: 2008-09
The Blue Jackets tasted playoff hockey for the first time during a memorable campaign
But when the Blue Jackets stepped onto the ice that spring evening at Joe Louis Arena, they were officially in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, having clinched the team's first postseason berth with a strong stretch run that ignited Jackets fever in Columbus. Rick Nash's late goal in a game April 8 vs. Chicago delivered overtime and the point the team needed to assure itself a postseason nod, and finally, Columbus would have a chance to participate in the highs and lows of playoff hockey.
Unfortunately, that series against Detroit delivered more valleys than peaks. The Red Wings boasted one of the deepest and most experienced rosters in hockey, posting a 51-21-10 record that dwarfed the Blue Jackets' 41-31-10 mark. And Detroit's playoff pedigree was evident from early on, as the Wings swept both games in Detroit by scores of 4-1 and 4-0 before a 4-1 victory against Columbus in Game 3 in the first-ever Stanley Cup Playoffs game in the state of Ohio.
The Blue Jackets saved their best for last, though. In a thrilling Game 4, Columbus answered everything the Wings threw at them, coming back from deficits of 1-0, 3-1 and 5-3 to tie the score each time. Unfortunately, Johan Franzen's power-play goal in the last minute gave Detroit a 6-5 win in a sad but dramatic end to the Jackets' first postseason series.
Still, it was history made, and the men who made it put in a lot of effort to make it so. For general manager Scott Howson, that meant taking a team that
placed last in the NHL in scoring the year prior
and remaking the forward group.
It started June 20, 2008, when he acquired former Ohio State forward R.J. Umberger for a pair of draft picks. The team was busy in free agency, signing creative forward Kristian Huselius and adding rugged defenseman Mike Commodore. In other deals, Raffi Torres came over from Edmonton in exchange for Gilbert Brule, while the defense was shored up in a trade with the New York Rangers that netted Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman for Dan Fritsche and Nikolai Zherdev.
Add in talented youngsters Jakub Voracek, Derick Brassard and Kris Russell -- all CBJ draft picks who stepped into bigger roles with success -- and the team finally had a playoff-caliber roster. Nash would lead the way in his first season as captain with a monster season, tallying 40 goals and adding 39 assists for a career-high 79 points on the way to his fourth straight All-Star bid. Huselius added depth in scoring with a 21-35-56 line, while Umberger had 26 goals among his 46 points as those two additions proved crucial.
At age 19, Voracek was a solid addition after being the team's first-round pick the year prior, scoring nine goals and adding 29 assists. Forced to step up into being the team's No. 1 center when Brassard was injured after netting 25 points in 31 games, Manny Malhotra added 11-24-35, while Tyutin shored up the blue line and also scored with nine goals and 34 points. Two midseason trade acquisitions also shined, as Jason Williams had 29 points in 39 games while Antoine Vermette netted 13 points in 17 games.
Defensively, Tyutin and Commodore became key parts of a unit that came together impressively, joining the young Russell and holdovers Jan Hejda and Mark Methot to help the Jackets place ninth in the league in scoring defense for the second straight year. And in net, rookie Steve Mason was the final piece of the puzzle, posting a franchise-record 10 shutouts and going 33-20-7 with a 2.29 GAA and .916 save percentage to earn the Calder Trophy as the league's best rookie.
The team floated around the .500 mark for the first few months of the season, but things started to come together as the year went on. Mason posted a shutout streak of 199:19, still a franchise record, from Dec. 23 to Jan. 2, while becoming the first goalie in franchise history with three straight shutouts, blanking Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Anaheim.
A few nights later Jan. 10 vs. Minnesota, Nikita Filatov became the first Jackets rookie with a hat trick in a 4-2 win over the Wild. On Jan. 27, Nash scored all three goals including the winner in overtime in a 3-2 win vs. Detroit at Nationwide Arena, then became the first player since Maurice Richard in 1947-48 to have an unassisted hat trick in an 8-2 win at Detroit on March 7. Meanwhile, on Feb. 19, Ken Hitchcock became the 13th coach in NHL history with 500 wins when the Jackets beat Toronto.
Led by Hitchcock's discipline and defensive focus as well as the good mix of veterans and youngsters, Columbus got better as the year went on. A 7-5-1 record in January was followed by a 7-4-1 February and 9-4-2 March, a hot finish that led to playoff hockey making its debut at Nationwide Arena.
