SvoNotes: Blankenburg's underdog story helps lift Blue Jackets

SvoNotes is a weekly column posted by BlueJackets.com reporter Jeff Svoboda. It will run Wednesday each week during the season.
Perhaps the unsung hero of Nick Blankenburg's story is Liz Badder.
Shortly after the Blue Jackets defenseman completed his high school career, he was still without an avenue to keep playing high-level hockey. An undersized forward who nonetheless filled up the net for a state championship team at Romeo High School outside of Detroit, Blankenburg had tried out for the North American Hockey League -- the second-highest level of junior hockey in the U.S. -- twice to no avail.

He still had a year to play AAA hockey, though, and Blankenburg snagged a spot on the Victory Honda 18U AAA team based in Plymouth, Mich. The only problem? The trek from Romeo in the far northern suburbs of Detroit to Plymouth on the far west side was more than an hour each way -- and that's without rush hour traffic.
Enter Blankenburg's high school coach at Romeo, Nick Badder, who welcomed Blankenburg into his home in Royal Oak to make the commute to Plymouth that much shorter. And credit Badder's wife, Liz, for being OK with the arrangement.
"Two months after I got married, he moved in," Badder recalls. "Obviously, that was a big adjustment for me and my wife, and again, it all goes back to him and his character. There wouldn't be any other kid on that team I'd let move in with me at 18 years old."
The help didn't end there. To earn a little spending money and fill the day, Badder also added Blankenburg to his staff at Suburban Ice Macomb.
"I hired him," Badder says with a laugh. "We were working at the rink together. I was coaching him, so we spent a lot of time together. You know, he was cooking up chicken tenders and taking free pops and driving the Zamboni. He's just a rink rat."
From there, against all odds, the rest is history. While playing with Victory Honda, Blankenburg moved from forward to defense when the team needed help on the blue line. There, he was finally noticed by scouts and earned a spot on the Okotoks Oilers of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, the same Canadian league that produced Cale Makar.
During his year in Alberta, Blankenburg was finally scouted by his hometown school, the University of Michigan, and his college hockey dream came true. It still didn't come easy, though, as Blankenburg wasn't awarded any scholarship money until his senior season, by which time he was captain of a team filled with first-round NHL draft picks.
And finally, once his U-M career ended last season, he signed an NHL contract, joining college teammate Kent Johnson on the Blue Jackets. Blankenburg impressed last year in a late-season cameo, amassing his first NHL goal and two assists in seven games, and has been a spark plug this year for the Jackets with a goal, an assist, eight shots on goal and 10 hits in three-plus games.

Though Blankenburg suffered an upper-body injury Sunday at New York that has him day-to-day at the moment, it's no coincidence his introduction to the lineup helped ignite a run of three wins in four games for the Jackets.
"Whew, he is a fun player to watch," Johnny Gaudreau said after Blankenburg's goal with 1:23 to go Thursday was the winner in a 5-3 victory against Nashville. "It's great to see another college kid jump right in the NHL. He sees the ice so well, he's physical, he's smart in his D zone -- he's a great little player. It's going to be fun playing with him.
"You have one of the smallest guys on the ice playing the body, jumping up in the play, making offensive zone plays, responsible in his D zone. He keeps building off of that and keeps working like that, he's going to be a really good player in this league for a long time."
As Gaudreau referenced, there were always two knocks on Blankenburg's game as he tried to move up the junior ranks. Size is the obvious one, as even in a game that is becoming more open to smaller players, his 5-6, 140-pound stature at Romeo scared away scouts. And while his intangibles were always there -- he was captain of the Romeo team that won the school's first state title under Badder in 2016 -- he wasn't seen as a burner, either.
Since then, Blankenburg has filled out to his current size of 5-9, 175 and added foot speed as he moved up the ranks and dedicated himself to full-time training. And along the way, he's made Badder -- who said he sent countless emails to coaches across North America trying to find a spot for Blankenburg beyond Romeo High -- look smart for trying to convince people Blankenburg had what it took to make it.
"He loves hockey," Badder said. "That's the biggest thing. At the end of the day, he loves hockey. He wants to play. He wants to take it as far as he can. He's very grounded, very humble and he's always taking it day by day. He's working as hard as he can. He doesn't get ahead of himself.
"Obviously there's times you get frustrated, especially the second year when he couldn't make the NAHL again and went to the AJHL. I think he was like, 'Man, what do I have to do?' But he knows everything happens for a reason."
Already, adversity has struck a few times this year for Blankenburg, who now must add overcoming injury to the list. He started the season out of the lineup as a healthy scratch, but in the eyes of head coach Brad Larsen, it was simply a numbers game and not a knock on Blankenburg's game.
"It was hard -- really hard," Larsen said of keeping him out of the lineup. "He handled it like a pro even though he's not a 10-year veteran. You could tell he wasn't happy not playing, but he handled it the right way. He put the work in every day. He was a dog on a bone in practice. He realizes when you get your opportunity, you have to be prepared."
Larsen has raved about Blankenburg's hockey sense, poise on the puck and aggressive nature, noting if he's going to make a mistake, he's going to do it going forward rather than backward.
That's the Blankenburg that Badder remembers from their high school days, and the coach said he has enjoyed his trips to Columbus to watch the games, including Blankenburg's debut a season ago as well as the game in which he scored his first career goal.
Badder has been his biggest cheerleader, but he admits seeing Blankenburg thrive on NHL ice has been a thrill even he couldn't have fully anticipated.
"You hope and you think (he's going to thrive), but at the same time, you're like, 'This is the NHL,'" Badder said. "I think he's going to be great, but it's pretty unbelievable to watch him night in and night out and see him have success. You're seeing what a difference maker he is on the ice."

Danforth Inspires at Sacred Heart

Justin Danforth is a player who has followed a similar path to Blankenburg.
Undersized and overlooked by all the major junior programs coming out of his hometown of Oshawa, Ontario, he attended Sacred Heart University, then played in the ECHL, American Hockey League, Finland's Liiga and finally the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia before signing with the Blue Jackets and making his NHL debut a season ago at age 28.
Sacred Heart has been a Division I hockey school since 1998-99, but the school located in Fairfield, Conn., has struggled to find success. The team has never made the NCAA tournament and has just seven winning seasons in D-I, and the year before Danforth arrived, the Pioneers won exactly two games.
To hear longtime head coach C.J. Marottolo tell it, Danforth was brought in to help turn around the program when he arrived in 2013-14.
"Scott McDougall, my assistant head coach, he found Justin," Marottolo said. "I remember him saying, 'He's going to help change the culture of the program in how he works, how he attacks the game.' What I remember most about Justin is every day, he wanted to get better, and he brought that work ethic on the ice, he brought that work ethic in the classroom. He just wanted to improve every day, and I think he's probably still doing that today."
Marottolo said those words Sunday evening at Madison Square Garden, as the entire Pioneers program made the 60-mile trip down to New York City to watch Danforth and the Blue Jackets take on the New York Rangers.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, Danforth was unable to play after suffering an injury in the game the night before against Pittsburgh. As the Blue Jackets announced yesterday, it turned out to be a torn labrum in his shoulder that will require surgery and a six-month rehab process, essentially ending his season.
It's a huge setback for Danforth, who had settled in as the Jackets' Swiss Army knife, capable of playing anywhere in the CBJ forward lineup and posting two goals in the team's first six games.
"To put it bluntly, it sucks," Larsen said of the injury. "Last year (at this time), he's on his way to the minors, right? This year, can't live without him."
That Danforth has reached the point of being indispensable to the Blue Jackets is a testament to his work ethic, will and dedication -- not to mention the four years of development that he received at Sacred Heart. When Danforth debuted with Columbus a season ago, he became the first Pioneer to play at in the NHL, and he continues to carry the Sacred Heart banner wherever he goes.
"I think it's awesome," Danforth said of bearing the standard for his college team. "Obviously I'm very grateful that it worked out the way it worked out. I think it helps the program bring guys in. There's a lot of good hockey players at Sacred Heart. There are guys that are going to be playing pro hockey after they are done there. I think it helps pave the way for them and show that there's a path. And also for NHL teams not to write off Sacred Heart."
For Marottolo, the future is bright at Sacred Heart. The school has built a $70 million rink, the Martire Family Arena, that is set to open for varsity play in January, and the Pioneers have won three of their first four conference games this season. It also helps that the program's most prominent alumnus is always a phone call or text away.
"That's great that he has that Pioneer pride," the coach said of Danforth. "He's an inspiration to all of our players. He's given our school a sense of pride from the administration on down to our team. It gives them the example that, hey, if you work hard and do it the right way and stay with it, maybe you'll get that chance.
"There's no question someone on our current team could be the next Justin Danforth, and that's what we're pushing for."