The Weekly Dis
From Pittsburgh to Columbus to Clearwater, spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport
Once again, I'd like to thank the readers of The Disrespected and the viewers/listeners of The Crewcible and The Cannon Balls podcasts for throwing money in the hat to get me to Clearwater, Fla., this week. We got the one-on-one we were looking for with new Columbus Crew coach Henrik Rydström and filled the notebook with player interviews (Abou Ali, Arfsten, Gazdag, and Zawadzki).
I have randomly selected 20 contributors to receive a DM t-shirts, which are sure to become collectors' items after the planet is finished incinerating. Or maybe before. I'll be in touch soon. Grazie.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzach Werenski
My flight from Tampa touched down in Columbus just before sunset Thursday. After a quick stop at home for a fresh shirt, I headed straight to the puck orchard. The Dallas Stars, one of the best of the West, were the opponents at the Nationwide Arena.
Twi nights before, the Jackets had the Ottawa Senators in town. This was an important game: The Jackets had won their first three under Bowness, including a shootout victory against the hated Penguins in Pittsburgh; and the Ottawas are another one of those teams the Jackets have to beat – an Eastern Conference opponent in the same fight for a wild card – preferably in regulation.
I watched Jackets-Sens on my laptop in my hotel room in Florida. The Jackets were a no-show. The Senators breezed to a 4-1 victory. I went downstairs to the bar.
Two days later, as mentioned, I went from their airport to the orchard to watch Jackets-Stars. I didn't feel any travel fatigue; actually, it was a relatively easy travel day. But, man, I was just like everyone else in the building – fighting sleep – by the start of the second period.
Nice things happened behind the scenes. It was Charlie Coyle's 1,000th career game. Classy player, quality dude, great Bawston accent. Coyle's father presented the opening lineup in the locker room and told Mathieu Olivier to drop he first guys that looked at him the wrong way. Coyle's family lit the cannon after introductions. Coyle's friends did the on-ice bumper ball during one of the intermissions. His teammates wore "Charlie Coyle 1,000" t-shirts and hats to the rink, and they all wore Charlie Coyle No. 3 jerseys with "1K" shoulder patches during pre-game warmups. And then they won.
“There was a lot going on in my head today,” Coyle said. “As I lay down for (an afternoon) nap, I just sort of stared at the back of my eyelids. I didn’t sleep at all. I didn’t think I was nervous, but there were obviously some nerves in me, just going through it. The guys did some really good things for me, things I wasn’t fully prepared for, you know? But those are the cool moments, and I would do it again and again. And to end up with a win at the end of the night is the best part.”
The Jackets beat the Stars 1-0 on a first-period goal by the god among us, Zach Werenski. Basically, Jet Greaves stole this one. Jackets fans have been waiting for this bit of thievery.
When Bowness met the media, he gushed: “That was a heck of a hockey game, man. The fans got their money’s worth tonight, for sure. Actually, that’s how we want to play, and that’s fun, for me to be behind the bench watching that effort ...”
Wait. What? Not since Ken Hitchcock roamed the bowels of Nationwide have the soaring merits of the dump-in been so heralded. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying three of my correspondents bought tickets for this game and they were playing video games on their phones from the middle of the second period until the Stars pulled their goalie.
When Bowness made his Jackets debut behind the bench last week, this is what he had on the whiteboard before the game:
Now, for the analytics breakdown of the Jackets-Stars game from Natural Stat Trick.
First, the heat map:
The darker the area, the more shot attempts a team has. The Stars have a very dark patch directly in front of the CBJ net and in the inner slot.
Now, for the underlying numbers:
xGF% is the share of how many goals a team should generate (xGF) and concede (xGA) at even strength based on quality and quantity of chances for and against. The Stars had 71% of the xG to the Blue Jackets paltry 29%. The Blue Jackets generated 0.93 xGF and surrendered 2.24 xGA. In other words, the Jackets barely mustered enough offense for one goal and Greaves (conservatively) saved about 2-3 goals worth of chances.
In a sentence: Bowness liked the way the Jackets competed and "played the right way" and got stick in lanes and blocked shots and finished their checks got the puck out of their own zone and got pucks deep in their offensive zone and handled the six-on-five push by the Stars down the stretch of the third period.
In another sentence: It was a snoozer and Greaves stole it with one snipe from the god among us. Which is fine.
The last time the Jackets won a 1-0 game in regulation was on Jan. 30, 2024, when they beat the Blues in St. Louis. Dmitri Voronkov scored the lone goal on a rush (assist, Werenski) in the third period. Elvis Merzlikins made 21 saves in posting the shutout. With that, Elvis ended a 94-game span between shutouts – which used to be his career-long drought.
Merzlikins' last shutout was on Oct. 30, 2024, when he made 26 saves in a 2-0 victory over the Islanders at Nationwide. The Jackets have played 123 games since.
Next up: Snow and Lightning
The Jackets (23-20-7) have the second-worst record in the East. Saturday night, the visitors at Nationwide will be the Tampa Bay Lightning (31-13-7), who have the third-best record in the East.
Expectations are that Central Ohio will be getting 8-12 inches of snow this weekend. The snow is supposed to start falling sometime in the late afternoon/evening. What does this mean for the game, which is slated for the usual puck-drop at around 7:12 p.m.? Probably nothing.
"To the best of my memory, we haven't had a situation where a game was postponed in advance because of the threat of weather," said Todd Sharrock, who has been in the team's communications department for the entire history of the franchise.
The last time the Jackets had a game postponed was on Dec. 26, 2022, when the Sabres couldn't get to Columbus from Buffalo. Over that Christmas in the City of No Illusions, nearly 60 inches (five feet) of snow fell at the Buffalo Airport in a span of five days. A game day was tacked on at the end of the regular season for the make-up.
Posts
I always plan on writing columns that post on M-W-F for paid subscribers and The Weekly Dis, free for everyone, on Saturday mornings. Last week, given the pace of the news, I posted seven columns. Then, I spent the weekend in Pittsburgh with the Blue Jackets to do some more reporting on the new coach. This week, I traveled to Florida for Crew training in Clearwater. Another different rhythm.
Sunday:
After winning his first two games as Blue Jackets coach at home, Bowness took the show on the road to face the Yinzers. It has been some time since I regularly cranked out columns on deadline. Here, I tried to loosen up some old muscles and expand the view on the nascent Bones Era.
Michael Arace
ICMI:
Saturday evening, I sat down and recorded a podcast with Dallas Stars TV analyst Daryl Reaugh, who has known Dean Evason for nearly 50 years and covered Bowness' Stars teams from 2019-2022. Razor and I had some fun, beginning with how he got his first broadcast job with the Dayton Bombers in the early 1990s (there is a Blue Jackets connection). We also did some deep diving on Evason and Bowness. Jackets fans might want to download this (from Spotify or Apple Podcasts) and listen while shoveling snow over the next two days.
It's good radio – and now it's questionable video, too.
On Saturday, I edited and posted a video version (above) of this episode to Spotify.
Tuesday:
There's no doubt that Bowness, who will turn 71 on Sunday, is still energetic. He's something beyond "spry." It seems to be contagious, as I relate in this post. Still, it remains to be seen whether the Jackets can scale the steep slope that is between them and the No. 2 wild card. They've got a lot more dumping-and-chasing to do.
Waddell has made the decision that the right course is to eschew a trade-deadline selloff, which might be the smarter play, and bet that Bowness is the man who can defy the odds and get the Jackets back into the playoffs for the first time since 2020.
As Waddell said, the Jackets will get to the end of the season and then he and Bowness, who will turn 71 on Sunday, will take stock and decide whether Bowness will stay behind the Jackets bench.
The Bowness hire is an interim gig, but it's not an interim gig. The Jackets can sell off their UFAs – they have some attractive commodities, beginning with Boone Jenner --and stock up on futures to add to their young core – or they can go for the playoffs and have a first-round pick in teens.
Can you not root for Bowness?
Michael Arace
Thursday:
Behind the scenes as Rydström takes his first steps onto the training ground with his new team, with a photo gallery and a video.
Michael Arace
ICMI:
Here's the video. I think we both had a good time.
He's a beauty.
Strip-mall restaurant fare
The weather was awful and I ate terribly in Clearwater. I'll get back to the Columbus strip malls soon enough.
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Michael Arace
