When you’ve never won a single playoff game in your franchise history, it’s probably safe to say that your team has its fair share of weaknesses. That being said, if you ask most people in the hockey world for two specific issues plaguing the Columbus Blue Jackets for several years, you would hear a chorus of “top-line center and elite scoring defenseman.”
As we’ve discussed before, Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson paid quite the ransom in hopes of addressing those needs with Jeff Carter and James Wisniewski. A previous post touched on how Wisniewski might fit into the mix in Columbus, but there hasn’t been much specific discussion regarding how Carter will adapt his game until today.
The Columbus Dispatch’s AJ Mazzolini caught up with Carter to ask him about a concern many (including myself) shared about the acquisition: will Nash and Carter be able to find chemistry together even though they’re both known as being better goal scorers than passers?
“That’s something that we’re going to have to work on,” Carter said. “With our games, they’re pretty similar, so I don’t think it will take us too long. We’re both big guys that like to skate and like to shoot the puck.”
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Carter said he doesn’t anticipate having to adjust his style much when the season starts in October.
“I’ve played in pretty much every situation in Philly the last few years,” said Carter, who spent six seasons with the Flyers. “I’m familiar with everything. I know what to do out there. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
He added that passing the puck more will become a larger part of his game, but shooting is still his main focus.
On one hand, team-building isn’t as simple as it might seem when you’re matching the highest-rated players with each other in a video game. Yet more often than not, talented players tend to learn to work off each others’ strengths and exploit advantages that their skills can create. The one thing the Blue Jackets must avoid is trying to make Carter (or Nash) something he’s not. Too often sports teams pump themselves up about “fixing” a player when it’s usually far wiser to utilize what that athlete can bring to the table while camouflaging blemishes in their games.
Even if Nash and Carter mix like water and oil, the addition could be useful if they play on separate lines. Such a setup probably wouldn’t be ideal for the Blue Jackets, but it would create something of a “pick your poison” scenario as an opposing team would need to put lesser defensemen on one of those two scorers (most likely Carter).
This new setup will be a test for those two high-scoring forwards, but it also might give us an idea of how strong a coach Scott Arniel really is. The list of excuses is starting to dwindle for Arniel, Howson and the rest of the Blue Jackets organization. Can they finally take a step toward credibility or will they continue to be a squad that cannot outgrow its expansion roots?
It should be interesting to find out.
