That group was announced just before the start of the 2021-22 season, but Bjorkstrand was traded the following offseason and Nyquist was dealt as he neared unrestricted free agency late last year. Jenner and Werenski have missed time with injuries, too, with Werenski out for almost the entirety of last season.
But as the Blue Jackets and new head coach Pascal Vincent moved forward into the 2023-24 campaign, they felt it was time to recognize Kuraly and Gudbranson, in part because they’re two of the more vocal veterans on the squad.
“Thank you for asking, because it matters,” Vincent said recently when asked about the moves. “We wanted to be a little bit more vocal in the room. Sean and Guddy are quite vocal. They're older players. They've seen a lot of different things in the past. They can bring their experience, and they support Boone and Zach's kind of leadership.”
Vincent went to great lengths to stress that the Blue Jackets have plenty of players without letters who will fill leadership roles in the room, something with which both Kuraly and Gudbranson agreed. It’s a sport where leadership not only matters but is revered, but there are rules about such things – only one captain and two alternates, or just three alternates and no captain, can be so designated during a game.
In other words, in the NHL, you can’t have everyone who is a leader wearing a letter, so some decisions must be made. And in this case, the Blue Jackets have been impressed by the way Kuraly and Gudbranson have shown their style of leadership.
“It definitely caught me by surprise,” Gudbranson said of the honor. “It’s hard to talk about myself in that way, honestly. All I’ve been saying is I’ll wear that very proudly, represent this organization well, represent my teammates well and represent by family and my folks well, as well.”
In traditional hockey fashion, both Kuraly and Gudbranson said it’s hard to talk about themselves – a sign of a leader, of course – and their leadership skills, but they were more than willing to talk about the other. In the case of Gudbranson, he was sure to point out Kuraly’s intensity is what stands out the most.
“He’s a fiery dude,” Gudbranson said. “We like going back and forth with each other. I call him the easiest guy in the NHL to get fired up. I can move just one of his shoes in the morning and get him immediately (teed) off, which is so fun. But he works. Every single day, you know exactly what you’re getting out of Sean Kuraly. He comes in, he works, he plays the game hard. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, which I absolutely love. He calls things as he sees them. He’s a really good hockey player, and he’s an excellent teammate. We need him in this room.”
From Kuraly’s perspective, he’s played for two teams in the NHL, while Gudbranson has skated for eight in his 13-year career. That has allowed Gudbranson to learn from all sorts of different situations, knowledge he’s putting to good use now with the Blue Jackets.
“Erik has seen this game since he was 18,” Kuraly said. “He’s seen a lot of different things. When you have that vast breadth of experience, you can see what he thinks works, what he thinks didn’t. He’s picked up a lot from a lot of different guys. He’s seen a lot of different players, different cities, different organizations. He has a lot of experience, and he brings it every single day. He’s consistent and a guy you want to have on your side.”
Holding On For Dear Life
If you’re a Blue Jackets fan, you know the feeling.
It’s late in a game, and after playing so well for so long, the Blue Jackets are under siege. The team holds a lead as the clock ticks down – five minutes, three minutes, two minutes, 1:45, slower and slower every time you look up – but it feels tenuous at best. Columbus is having trouble clearing the zone, is generating almost no offense, and the goalie is making save after save to keep the Jackets ahead.
What gives? It looks like a different team out there!
Well, in some ways it is.
Call it human nature. Call it not wanting to do the wrong thing. Call it, well, just how things go in hockey games when one team has the lead and the other is pushing to tie the score.
But for some reason, in those situations, things do change a little bit, Vincent said.
“The other team will make a push, but it’s not so much the team that is trailing that is different, it’s the team that’s leading that adjusts,” he said. “We need to be smart, don’t get me wrong. We don’t want to be running around and everything, but we need to still make plays and still play the game. We had a plan. The plan worked for two periods. Let’s stick to that. Don’t change anything. But it’s just a mind-set.”
I asked Vincent about this phenomenon Sunday, mere hours after the Blue Jackets held on by their fingernails to earn a 5-3 win over the New York Rangers. Columbus led 4-1 after two periods, and while the Blue Jackets weren’t exactly dominant, they were playing with poise and had their fair share of the puck.
And then, in the third, it was one-way traffic, with New York posting a 17-2 edge in shots on goal in the final period. Whether it was because the Blue Jackets had to make a goalie change, with CBJ debutant Spencer Martin replacing the ill Elvis Merzlikins; whether it’s because the Jackets are one of the youngest teams in the league; or whether it’s because the Rangers have one of the best offenses in the league, the Blue Jackets were under siege for the full 20 minutes.
New York never got within two goals, and considering the Blue Jackets got the win, Vincent wasn’t complaining the next day. But he did acknowledge that playing in those situations is a skill, something the Blue Jackets will build as they move up the ranks.
“Sometimes last night, I felt we were nervous with the puck, and we tried to make a chip out and they got it back in the neutral zone and they re-attacked when there was a guy open,” Vincent said. “Just give it to him, keep playing. Learning how to play when you are behind is one thing; learning how to win when you have the lead after two periods is a different animal. We’re going to learn it.”
And the one thing Vincent wanted to drive home – even if you don’t feel the best about a win, it’s much better to learn from a victory than a loss.
“Even this morning, we had a meeting with the players, and human nature, I asked them, ‘How was the game?’” Vincent said Sunday. “And they are thinking about the third period. I said, ‘That’s OK, I understand, but we’ve done a lot of good things. We can’t forget all the good things we’ve done.’ We’ll fix the negatives, but we build on the positives.”
Cats and Dogs, Living Together
On Monday night, two groups were welcomed to Nationwide Arena and separated by a mere ribbon of concrete in the upper bowl.
In section 211: The CBJ Club at Ohio State, a group of students who are Blue Jackets fans and came to check out the game with one another.
One section over, in 210, sat the U-M Club of Central Ohio, on this night a group of around 30 Michigan alums who bought a group ticket offer to receive a free shirt, game tickets and the chance to take a postgame pic with Zach Werenski.
Unlike in European soccer, a phalanx of security guards wasn’t needed in the aisle to separate these two groups, who likely didn’t know the other was even there. But it does illustrate an amusing reality right now – in a city known for Ohio State, the Blue Jackets have built a rather pro-Michigan team.
Wolverine products Adam Fantili and Kent Johnson were on the ice Monday night, and Werenski would have been had he not been injured in the season opener. Fellow U-M defenseman Nick Blankenburg is beginning the season in Cleveland, and the Blue Jackets also drafted Fantilli’s friend, Michigan forward Gavin Brindley, in this past draft.
“I love it,” Fantilli said pregame. “Go Blue.”
The Blue Jackets are trying to build a winner and drafting/signing the best players available, and a lot of high-end talent has come out of Ann Arbor in recent years. While Columbus does have OSU product Carson Meyer and a bevy of other Central Ohioans like Kuraly on the roster, the Blue Jackets have been trending maize and blue over scarlet and gray in recent years.
“A lot of people are calling this Ann Arbor South,” 2014 Michigan alumnus Jay O’Bryant joked at the game.
Jay is a friend of mine who calls Columbus home, which of course means he lives smack dab in the middle of enemy territory. In fact, his fiancée is an Ohio State alumna, and he brought our friend Dave, an OSU alum who is as big a Buckeye fan as you’ll find, to the game as well. Such is life when you’re a Wolverine in the heart of Ohio.
I posted about the Michigan alumni club coming to the game on Twitter and got some predictable pushback, but as an Ohio State alum myself, it’s all in good fun to me. I know some will always take the rivalry seriously, but I’ve become friends with plenty of Wolverines over the years and have realized we’re not so different after all, even if we’ll never see eye to eye on football Saturdays or hockey Friday nights.
So while Columbus will always be an Ohio State town, there’s room for a few Wolverines around, especially if they help fill up the net for the CBJ.
