Among Grantland's Sean McIndoe's opening-week observations:

The Blue Jackets Are a Disaster

And we close with Columbus, because even in blog posts, the Blue Jackets are dead last.

Last season, Columbus suffered through some terrible injury luck and never recovered, enduring a season that basically ended up being a write-off. But with a return to full health and the offseason acquisition of Brandon Saad, this season was supposed to be different. This time last week, the Jackets looked like a sneaky pick to jump back into the Metro mix.

Four games in, the results aren’t encouraging. Back-to-back losses to the Rangers were disheartening; New York is a good team, but it’s one that the Blue Jackets will have to show they can hang with if they want to be taken seriously as Metro contenders. Monday’s loss to the Sabres was far worse, a lackluster effort against an opponent that good teams should be able to beat. That left the Blue Jackets sitting at 0-3-0, which may be good for one-liners but left them staring down a poor start for the fourth season in a row.

And then came last night, and a humbling 7-3 loss to the Senators on home ice that had goalie Sergei Bobrovsky giving himself a vote of no confidence. There’s no nice way to spin this — the Blue Jackets are free-falling.

Continued