Columbus Blue Jackets Q & A with GM Jarmo Kekalainen

This is not how this was supposed to work. 

Coming off an encouraging year in which the Blue Jackets outperformed expectations, they began this season with a new boost of optimism after signing Johnny Gaudreau and re-signing Patrik Laine. This was supposed to be the next step in general manager Jarmo Kekalainen’s plan to quickly “reset” the roster rather than undergoing a lengthy overhaul. 

Instead, halfway through, it’s been a big calamitous step back. Injuries and illness have contributed heavily, but there was also a dreadful 3-9-0 start. In order to get perspective on what’s happened, The Dispatch recently caught up with Kekalainen for a Q & A interview. Here is the conversation, edited for length:

How surprising was a 3-9-0 start considering there were only two injuries in the first 10 games? 

 We obviously didn’t envision that after last year, and in preseason and training camp we were thinking we were going to have a stronger season than the year before. We knew the tough schedule was going to test us early on, but we get off to a bad start, start squeezing the stick and get uptight as a group and on the individual level. Then, like you said, we go 3-9 and it’s a tough hole to dig out of. Then we get all the injuries, which certainly doesn’t help when you’re trying to climb out of a hole, and here we are.