The Blue Jackets looked way too slow on Saturday night
RIP Lyle Odelein, a human being of prodigious warmth and generosity
The Utah Mammoth came to Columbus and thoroughly outclassed the Blue Jackets in a 4-1 victory at the Nationwide Arena Friday night. A crowd of 17,176 was on hand when the puck dropped. About a third were gone by the time the Mammoth scored their third power-play goal at 14 minutes, 31 seconds into the third period.
(After the game, I posted a couple of videos and then skedaddled. I crossed the street to Boston's to see if the USA-Mexico game was on [it was not]. I crossed back and ducked into Viva Mexican Kitchen, which opened in place of another Mexican joint, Nada, around eight months ago. The soccer game was absolutely on every screen at Viva. There were about 15 people in there – a small throng, given the space – and the manager could've shooed everyone out to save a couple of bucks. Yet, they made sure to stay open to the end of the game – perhaps because the owner was on the premises, watching the game. A good sign. The 20-ounce Pacifico draft was delicious. Another good sign. The staff there was exceedingly accommodating. Nice. The prices were definitely not on the cheap side, but neither were they outright ridiculous. When I walked out of after the U.S. secured a 3-0 vicotory, Boston's was already dark. There are many options in the Arena District – RBar is a preferred destination for hockey, to name one place – but I will say this: I had no problem spending my money at Viva, which features "Elevated Mexican Cuisine," and I will do so again. Don't tell Mrs. Arace. But I digress. Where was I?)
If you are a Blue Jackets fan, what scared you was the speed disparity between the Jackets and the Utahs. The Mammoth dynamic duos – Nick Schmaltz/Clayton Keller on the first line and Logan Cooley/Dylan Guenther on the second – were too quick to handle on this particular night. The four of them played together on the first power-play unit, to devastating effect.
Utah's style is reminiscent of Colorado's – their transition game blurs and their puck support is, despite the pace of play, nonpareil. When they don't have the puck, they swarm and, despite the pace of play, they remain positionally sound. Mix in their high-end talent, and it's quite a package. They're obviously well-coached by Andre Tourigny.
"They kind of play the way we want to play," CBJ defenseman Zach Werenski said.
But can the Jackets – with their notably hefty forwards – ever match the speed of a team like Utah (or Colorado, or Carolina)?
GM Don Waddell, 68, and coach Rick Bowness, 71, have a roster with some Old School thump which, the brain trust believes (with some reason), will come in handy if they can make the playoffs. OK. The Jackets are also missing half of their defensive corps to injury in Damon Severson (shoulder surgery), Dante Fabbro (upper body) and Ivan Provorov (lower body). The team managed fine without them on opening night, but Game 2 vs. Utah was another matter altogether.
The Jackets committed four stick fouls, two of them by defenseman Denton Mateychuk (who is actually fast). Those kinds of penalties can happen when you're chasing, and are a step behind. The Mammoth went three-for-four on the power play, and their man-advantage goals were things of beauty.
Bowness was asked to assess whether his team had a problem with Utah's speed. Here's what he said:
Werenski got the same question from The Athletic's Aaron Portzline. Here's what Z said:
"We got exposed tonight," Bowness said. "We've got a lot of work to do. We'll just get back to work on Monday morning and address the problems."
The one thread that ran through all the post-game interviews: The Jackets don't play again until Friday (against Pittsburgh at Nationwide). Which is to say that they'll get another week of training camp, for all practical purposes. They'll try to get properly synced, and so forth.
(Note: The New York Rangers [3-1, first place Metro] beat Utah [2-1, third in the Central] at Madison Square Garden Sunday night. Final score: 4-2.)
RIP, Odie
The 2000 expansion draft was of an era when the choicest talent was not made available to the expansion teams, in this case the Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild. Most of the players exposed were pending free agents (expensive propositions), or they were old, or they were old pending free agents, or they were castoffs, or old castoffs. This was an era when expansion teams were supposed to experience a lot of pain.
Then-Jackets GM Doug MacLean selected Lyle Odelein – an oldish, pending free agent – with the express purpose of signing him and making him the team's first captain. Which he did.
The 2000-01 Jackets were a tight group, full of personality. Odelein – a tough customer, a hockey player through-and-through, and a man who showed up every single day with a smile on his face – was representative. Under coach Dave King, they somehow gutted out 28 victories and 71 points, performing before sellout crowds at Nationwide Arena.
I heard about Odelein's death, reportedly from a heart attack, just before the Jackets-Utah game at Nationwide Saturday night. I talked to one of his teammates from the expansion years – man, it has been 26 years – and he said, flat-out, that Odelein had jammed two lifetimes of living into his 58 years on earth. On and off the ice. Raise a glass. Odie would appreciate it.
Odelein had a natural warmth that drew people to him, and he held them close. I was witness to his prodigious generosity on more than a few occasions. I recall a team dinner at a steakhouse in the middle of the Arizona desert, in mid-December 2000. Odelein knew the owner, made sure the place would stay open beyond its usual hours and invited everyone – including the beat writer. He insisted on it. And he insisted everyone smile with him. Then, he picked up the tab.
He always picked up the tab. Always. With a smile on his face.
Below is Odelein's full obituary:
In the spring of 2018, Lyle Odelein lay in a coma at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, his heart valve, liver and kidneys shutting down from a blood infection that traced back to a cactus prick on an Arizona golf course. Odelein, the Canadian defenseman who won the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1993 and became the first captain of the expansion Columbus Blue Jackets, died on October 2, 2026, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He was 58.
He was born on July 21, 1968, in Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, and played junior hockey with the Western Hockey League's Moose Jaw Warriors before the Montreal Canadiens selected him 141st overall, in the seventh round of the 1986 NHL Entry Draft. Odelein made his NHL debut in February 1990 and built a reputation as a hard-nosed defenseman, dropping his gloves nearly 150 times over a career that ran sixteen seasons and eight teams, closing with 50 goals, 202 assists and 2,316 penalty minutes in 1,056 games played.
The high point came in 1993, when Odelein helped the Canadiens win the Stanley Cup during that spring's playoff run, the only championship of his career and the one he was still asked about decades later.
He left Montreal for the New Jersey Devils in 1996, spending four seasons there before a late-season trade sent him to Phoenix in early 2000. That summer, the expansion Columbus Blue Jackets claimed him in their inaugural draft and made him the franchise's first captain. "I kind of knew when I signed here I was going to be the first captain," Odelein told NHL.com in 2026. "It was such an honor and a big thrill for me." Of that inaugural roster, he added, "We had a lot of character guys. We weren't the most talented team, but everybody in our dressing room was really close." He played 146 games for Columbus, scoring 5 goals and 33 points, before the Blue Jackets traded him to Chicago in 2002 for defenseman Jaroslav Spacek and a draft pick. He later played for Dallas and Florida, sat out the 2004-05 season during the NHL lockout, and finished with the Pittsburgh Penguins, where a knee injury ended his career in 2006.
That resilience was tested far more severely in 2018. Odelein initially mistook the infection for the flu, and by the time friends brought him to Allegheny General Hospital's emergency room, transplant surgeon Dr. Ngoc Thai recalled, "he didn't look so good." He slipped into a coma that lasted about six weeks while the infection spread to his heart valve, liver and kidneys. His wife, Laurel, recalled him pleading as he fought to stay conscious: "Please don't let me die, please don't let me die, Laurel." Surgeons then carried out a combined heart valve replacement and double organ transplant in one extended operation. "We felt like even though it was high-risk, it was worth taking the risk," said Dr. Stephen Bailey, one of the surgeons involved, according to CBS News Pittsburgh. Doctors also diagnosed him with critical illness polyneuropathy, a nerve disorder that left him temporarily paralyzed, and he needed months of therapy before he could walk again.
By the end of the following year he had regained his health. "Everything is going super well," he told NHL.com in December 2019. "I went for a checkup again last week, and all the numbers were perfect." Months after leaving the hospital, he had already returned to Montreal for the Canadiens' 25th-anniversary celebration of the 1993 championship team. He and Laurel had also settled permanently in the Pittsburgh area after his playing days, where the couple built a business that grew to more than 50 Supercuts salon locations across Pennsylvania and one in Lake Tahoe. "My wife and I could live anywhere we want, and we chose Pittsburgh," he said. "I'm really thrilled to be here."
Six months before he died, Odelein returned to Columbus for the Blue Jackets' 25th-anniversary alumni celebration, catching up with teammates he had captained a quarter-century earlier and watching the franchise he helped introduce to the league mark its own milestone. "I think you look at life in a different way," he reflected. "You don't take life for granted. I have a great wife, so it's good." He still followed the team closely. "If the Jackets get in the playoffs, look out," he said. "I wouldn't want to play them."
Odelein's name remains part of Columbus Blue Jackets history as the franchise's first captain, the player chosen to set its tone before it had played a single game. In Montreal, his name sits with the 1993 championship roster that anchors Canadiens lore. In Pittsburgh, he is survived by his wife, Laurel, and their six children. He had already proven, in a hospital bed in 2018, exactly what he was capable of enduring.
Those who wish to honor Lyle's memory are invited to plant a tree in their name.
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