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Category: Columbus-Blue-Jackets

Blue Jackets Shooting For Playoffs

by Paul on 09/30/07 at 08:55 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

Hitchcock has never missed the Stanley Cup playoffs when he has spent the entire season behind the bench.

“I take a lot of pride in that,” he said.

“There’s nobody talking about our team who is picking us in the top 12 of the conference,” Hitchcock said. “There’s nobody. What they’re missing is that this is a very competitive group of players. I can see it. I know it’s there. But you can’t measure it until we start the competition.”

“I start every season assuming we’re going to make the playoffs,” Hitchcock said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. But we’ve come a long, long way in a pretty short amount of time.

“That’s all I’m going to say.”

more

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  Tags: columbus+blue+jackets

Tough Approach

by Paul on 09/29/07 at 09:24 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

The Blue Jackets lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 in a nine-round shootout in front of 15,713 in the RBC Center. But, this being the exhibition season, the score is merely an aside.

“We’re going to be the toughest team in the league this year,” Fritsche said. “What this should tell everybody is that we’re not going to back down from anybody. If there’s an issue, our five guys are going to be right in the middle of it before their five guys are. That’s just the way it’s going to be.

“So, I’d say, yeah, we’re going to have a lot of nights like this.”

There were 39 penalties for 142 penalty minutes, including eight fighting majors, 12 roughing minors, three 10-minute misconducts and two game misconducts.

more

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  Tags: carolina+hurricanes, columbus+blue+jackets, fighting

Boom- More Rumors Shot Down

by Paul on 09/27/07 at 01:03 PM ET
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from Puck-rakers at the Columbus Dispatch,

A certain Web site has suggested the Blue Jackets are in hot pursuit of a Vancouver Canucks center. Also, that the Blue Jackets are fixin’ to trade Nikolai Zherdev to the Edmonton OIilers for a draft pick.

Let’s break this down: Which Canucks center? Brendan Morrison? Doubt it. He centers Markus Naslund on the Canucks’ No. 1A line. If they trade him, who’s the No. 1 center? That creates a huge hole in the lineup of a club that already struggles to score goals.

read on & thanks to Spector for the pointer…

Filed in: NHL Teams, Columbus Blue Jackets, NHL Talk, | KK Hockey | Permalink
  Tags: columbus+blue+jackets, rumors, vancouver+canucks

Columbus Searching For #1 Center

by Paul on 09/26/07 at 09:09 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

Asked yesterday if he were any closer to finding one, he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

“We are still looking at things right now,” Hitchcock said.

Eight days from the season opener against the Stanley Cup-champion Anaheim Ducks, Hitchcock remains uncertain who will play between wingers Rick Nash and David Vyborny.

more on the Blue Jackets…

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  Tags: columbus+blue+jackets

Columbus Owner Discusses His Team

by Paul on 09/23/07 at 09:05 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

With a new leadership group intact, and with the Blue Jackets’ seventh NHL season drawing near, McConnell sat down with The Dispatch last week for his first public comments since MacLean’s firing.

Question: What are your expectations for the 2007-08 season?

Answer: I say the same thing every year, but I think we’re going to win, I think we’re going to be better. Better than last year, for sure.

Q: Blue Jackets fans have never had a chance to watch a winning hockey club. How tenuous do you feel the fan base is right now?

A: It might be a little bit. But I think with the changes we’ve made, the fans are going to stick with us. They want to see how the new regime works out….

read on

Filed in: NHL Teams, Columbus Blue Jackets, | KK Hockey | Permalink
  Tags: columbus+blue+jackets, john+h.+mcconnell

Bouchard Making His Own Breaks

by Paul on 09/21/07 at 10:55 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

Joel Bouchard lay in a Dallas hospital seven years ago with his mother at his side and doctors working to stave off an infection that nearly killed him.

Some details remain sketchy, Bouchard said, but while fighting off a 105.1-degree temperature he distinctly recalled feeling angry.

Not at fate. Not at God. Not even at the physician who misdiagnosed the spinal meningitis days earlier.

“I was mad at myself,” said Bouchard, a 33-year-old hockey journeyman. “I didn’t feel like I was where I wanted to be in life—personally or professionally. I felt like I had become complacent and underachieving and I told myself, ‘If I get out of here, I’m going to do something about it.”

continued

Filed in: NHL Teams, Columbus Blue Jackets, | KK Hockey | Permalink
  Tags: columbus+blue+jackets, injuries, joel+bouchard

Foote & Fedorov Hope To Define Their Roles

by Paul on 09/16/07 at 08:29 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

Last week, both acknowledged frustration with their Blue Jackets careers, and they shouldered some of that blame. But in the wake of front-office shuffling in the offseason, Foote and Fedorov vowed that different days lie ahead, both for their own careers and for the Blue Jackets’ success on the ice.

“I want to have more fun here,” Foote said. “I want to win.”

Fedorov put it another way: “I came to training camp excited as hell.”

read on

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  Tags: columbus+blue+jackets, sergei+fedorov

Columbus Looks To Nash

by Paul on 09/11/07 at 08:29 PM ET
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from Pierre Lebrun of the CP via CanadaEast,

“Both Hitch and I have an urgency to get better and get better now but we want to be patient with our younger players,” Howson told The Canadian Press on Tuesday.

It starts with star winger Rick Nash, who has gone backwards since his scintillating 41-goal 2003-04 campaign, dropping to 31 goals in an injury-plagued 2005-06 season and then down to 27 last year.

“The challenge for Rick is to play the way he did in the last two and half months last season and through the world championships,” Hitchcock said Tuesday. “If he does that, I think he’s going to be a dominant player in the National Hockey League.”

more

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Blue Jackets About To Shape Up

by Paul on 09/09/07 at 09:59 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

The first step, Hitchcock said, is for the Blue Jackets to get in better physical shape, especially the young players.

That, it seems, is the root cause of the Blue Jackets’ so-called soft label.

In 2005-06, after defenseman Francois Beauchemin was traded from Columbus to Anaheim, he said it wasn’t until he joined the Ducks that he truly understood what it meant to be in NHL shape.

An NHL source told The Dispatch that Ducks general manager Brian Burke placed a call a few weeks later to then-Blue Jackets general manager Doug MacLean offering him some friendly advice: get your team in shape.

MacLean didn’t take the advice well—understandably—and a once-tight friendship with Burke has been rocky ever since.

read on

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Vyborny Wants A Long Term Contract

by Paul on 09/06/07 at 10:29 AM ET
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from the Columbus Dispatch,

Vyborny, who returned to Columbus late last week after spending the summer in his native Czech Republic, reiterated his wishes.
“Two years ago, I wanted to go back home so my kids could go to school there,” Vyborny said.
What changed?
“My wife,” he said, with a grin. “She really likes it here, the kids like it here, and they are in really good schools. The first language they will learn is English. But they can learn to speak Czech at home, from us.”
Vyborny, who lives in Gahanna, is the Blue Jackets’ franchise leader in games played, points, assists, short-handed goals and multipoint games.

more

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