The Columbus Blue Jackets are making a massive change to the organization’s culture by bringing Mike Babcock into the mix as the team’s head coach. We’ve already discussed a few players who may benefit from his style of game, but there are a few who may not work very well in the new coach’s system as well. While this is typical for most coaching changes, if Babcock plans to stay with the organization for the long haul, then this will certainly be bad news for the future of these players in Columbus. There’s a chance of course that they may be able to turn things around and become Babcock players, however, it’ll require a complete overhaul of their playing style so it’s not very likely.
Jack Roslovic
My colleague Don Helbig discussed how Babcock could help turn around Jack Roslovic’s career earlier this week. While that’s possible, as he currently stands, he is not a player who fits into the new style of play. Babcock believes that a 200-foot game is an important factor for a successful hockey team. During his time with the Detroit Red Wings, he had two of the best two-way forwards in the league, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, and that combination helped them win a Stanley Cup during the 2007-08 season. While nobody would expect any of the Blue Jackets’ current centers to reach the level of those two under Babcock, Roslovic is in a way the exact opposite of them.
Babcock has already emphasized how important having two strong defensive players on each line will be to him. In a discussion with Aaron Portzline of The Athletic, Babcock stated “What we’re going to do is try to have two 200-foot players on each line. What I mean by that is, having another guy (other than the center) who can play down low” (from ‘Is Patrik Laine a center? Blue Jackets lineup a mystery under new coach Mike Babcock’ The Athletic, July 21, 2023). Roslovic doesn’t fit this description despite spending the majority of his NHL career playing center. As a result, it’s unlikely he’ll get a contract extension following this upcoming season unless something changes very quickly in his game.
Roslovic is inconsistent offensively and he’s never been known for his play in his own zone. His playmaking ability and goal-scoring can help the team occasionally; however, he’s not a player who can be counted on to make a positive impact on a nightly basis. If anything, he’ll make negative contributions just as often as his positive ones. His game has certainly taken a step forward since joining the Blue Jackets, as it’s clear that he’s contributing more now than he did with the Winnipeg Jets. However, unless he makes major changes to his style of play, Babcock will get tired of him very quickly and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him end up as a healthy scratch.
Adam Boqvist
If Babcock is very keen to have forwards who can contribute defensively on the roster, it’s difficult to imagine that he’ll be happy with defensemen who struggle in their own end of the ice. Adam Boqvist can contribute offensively when he’s healthy, but he’s certainly not the strongest player defensively. With the vast amount of defensive options that Babcock will have available to him during training camp, it’s difficult to see him preferring Boqvist over a player like Andrew Peeke or David Jiricek. Both of them can also move the puck with confidence but are stronger defensively than Boqvist.
The current defensive bottleneck will make it difficult to hold a spot if a player is forced out of the lineup as well. Given Boqvist’s injury history, it seems more of a question of when rather than if an injury will take him out of the lineup during the 2023-24 season. As a result, even if he’s impressed up until that point, there’s no guarantee a spot will still be available whenever he’s healthy again.
Emil Bemstrom & Liam Foudy
Although this list was meant to be three players, Emil Bemstrom and Liam Foudy are in the same camp so it seemed fitting to combine them as one entry. They have both been trying to finally break into the Blue Jackets lineup consistently for years at this point. Neither of them was able to do so under John Tortorella but seemed to gain some traction during Brad Larsen’s final season at the helm when the organization was decimated by injuries. To put it bluntly, neither did much to impress during their big opportunity and it’s unlikely that Babcock will see much value in either of them. Neither have become the offensive game changers that management hoped they’d become, and neither one is particularly great defensively either. They’re replaceable players who are quickly falling farther down the depth chart.
A player like Jordan Dumais is younger and seems to have a higher upside at this point, so if he wasn’t required to be in either the NHL or go back to his Canadian Hockey League team, then he’d likely get the nod over Foudy or Bemstrom as a depth call up. Add in the fact that Luca Del Bel Belluz, James Malatesta and Mikael Pyyhtia are now going to be regulars for the Cleveland Monsters, they may begin to take some of those opportunities as well. Unless one of them makes an impact very quickly, there aren’t many more chances for either of them in Columbus.
Related: 4 Blue Jackets Who Could Thrive Under Mike Babcock
It’s going to be very difficult for the 2023-24 Blue Jackets to do worse than the 2022-23 team did in part due to the addition of Babcock. If he implements his system and the majority of players respond well to it and are able to stay healthy, then they could surprise a lot of people. With that being said, there’s a strong chance that players like Roslovic, Boqvist, Foudy and Bemstrom get left behind. It’s an unfortunate side of the game, however, not every player can adapt to every coach’s style of play.