from Michael Arace of the Columbus Dispatch,

Doug MacLean could not get the Blue Jackets off the starting line. Scott Howson pushed it forward and then stalled. Enter Jarmo Kekalainen, the team’s third general manager in 16 years, who was billed as a workaholic with a keen eye for talent.

Surely he would drive the franchise to a level above abject mediocrity. Given the Jackets’ history, even commendable mediocrity would be an improvement.

To push the analogy toward the garish, Kekalainen is spinning wheels — but, at least, he is not gunning the engine. Maybe this is the smart play. We will not know until the Jackets manage to avoid burying themselves by Thanksgiving.

Jackets fans: What you see is what you get. Kekalainen is sticking with his roster, as constructed. It is largely the same roster that finished with a 15-1-1 flourish at the end of the 2014-15 season, when John Davidson, chief of hockey operations, proclaimed a Day of Jubilee. It is almost exactly the roster that got the coach fired early in the 2015-16 season, another playoff-free year that JD described as “a kick in the teeth.”

In sum, this is the same roster, minus Ryan Johansen, that has been up-and-coming one year and underperforming the next year, and missed the playoffs both years.

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