There must have been a day when the new franchise from Columbus and all of their management and owners sat around a giant table in a shiny new conference room, got comfy in their new leatherette office chairs and addressed the top item on the day's agenda: Select team nickname.
And whatever occurred after that moment must have been influenced by some sort of drug, alcohol, temporary insanity or some other loss of rational thought. Because when those executives emerged from their glass-walled room of power and decision, they brought with them the single worst team nickname in sports.
Not only do the Columbus Blue Jackets have the nickname of another team from their division in the name, but they named their team after clothing. What player or fan in the history of sport has ever been motivated to root for clothing? Jackets? Let's go Jackets? How 'bout them... Jackets? It's total nonsense. What's their rink called, The Closet?
At least the brain trust of Columbus has managed to follow that decision with a whole series of other innane decisions including using perennial top-8 draft picks to select a veritable Hall of Who? of underachievers (Rostislav Klesla; 4th overall), flashes in the pan (Pascal Leclaire; 8th overall), busts (Nikolai Zherdev; 4th overall, Alexandre Picard; 8th overall and Gilbert Brule; 6th overall), and another boom-or-buster who they're slowly wearing down into a nub of his once-promising self (Nikita Filatov; 6th overall). Their one good high draft pick, Rick nASH; 1st overall, is great, yes, but still managed to become T.J. Oshie's personal washwoman last year by getting drilled by the smaller player twice in the span of one week.
The Blue Jackets, in an attempt to avoid the swamp they've been mired in since their beginnings, fired their general manager and coach and replaced them with Scott Howson and Ken "I can pull a boat with my" Hitchcock over the last couple years and the team has played better since then, making the playoffs last season for the first time. This year they are doing better (third in the Central), but are still outside the playoff race (10th in the West). They've gone 4-4-2 over their last 10, making the Blues and their 5-3-2 last 10 record a slightly better performing team.
This would be a good team for the Blues to beat and keep the point streak going. If they have any chance of climbing back into the playoff race, beating a pile of empty coats would be a good start.
This is your game day thread. Do that shit.