We’ve only had one game of John Tortorella on the Columbus Blue Jackets bench and Ryan Johansen has already had a tough go of things. He was removed from the top line before being benched in the third period of the team’s eighth straight loss on Thursday.
Now Johansen has fallen ill and took a commercial flight back to Columbus to get treatment while the team has three games left on their road trip, according to Shawn Mitchell at the Columbus Dispatch. At a minimum he will miss Saturday’s game against Colorado. The rest is unclear, since it’s possible he gets checked out and rejoins the team.
The team has been far from verbose on the situation. Mitchell reports that all GM Jarmo Kekalainen said was, “He’s not feeling well.” President John Davidson said, simply, “another curveball.”
Tortorella on Johansen Illness: "We knew he wasn’t going to play. He just didn’t feel well enough. When we leave ,we get home at…#CBJ
— Shawn Mitchell (@shecky218) October 24, 2015
More Torts"…I thinik 3:30, 4 (a.m.). We wanted to get him home, take care of him and get him evaluated as quickly as possible so…#CBJ
— Shawn Mitchell (@shecky218) October 24, 2015
More Torts: "…we can get an idea of where we’re going to go with it."#CBJ
— Shawn Mitchell (@shecky218) October 24, 2015
This comes just a couple of days after the New York Post’s Larry Brooks reported that Tortorella told Johansen that he’s out of shape, a report that Tortorella denied on Saturday, saying he was in touch with former coach Todd Richards during camp and that conditioning was not a problem.
With everything that’s happening around this team at the moment, it’s not unreasonable to expect this situation to go under the microscope and fuel speculation that things haven’t started off with a bang between Tortorella and Johansen, the team’s star forward.
RELATED: Tortorella Will Not Coddle Johansen & Co.
Dustin Nelson is the News Editor for The Hockey Writers. He’s a contributor to Hockey Prospectus, Hockey Wilderness, and writes a column for Rotowire. He’s also written for Gone Puck Wild, Wild Xtra, InDigest, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Tiny Mix Tapes, Prefix Magazine & other publications. Have a tip? Email him at dlukenelson[at]gmail[dot]com.
