Can the Columbus Blue Jackets win games in middle of a youth movement? 'It's a game of men'
Sean Kuraly knows what it takes to build a winning NHL franchise.
The Blue Jackets center spent his first five seasons from 2016-21 with the Boston Bruins. Each of those seasons ended with a playoff run, and in 2019 the team reached the Stanley Cup Final. It was a “machine,” Kuraly said.
But it took “a hell of a lot of work to get it going,” he added.
One day after completing his third season in Columbus, Kuraly didn’t shy from sharing where he felt the Blue Jackets stood.
“We’ve got a ton of work in front of us,” Kuraly said. “There’s no secret there.”
Coach Pascal Vincent agrees, even if he feels a foundation was set in 2023-24. That's because the Blue Jackets’ foundation is being built on a youth movement with players such as Adam Fantilli, Cole Sillinger, Dmitri Voronkov, Yegor Chinakhov and Kirill Marchenko.
And Vincent realizes that youth rarely leads to wins in the NHL.
“It’s a game of men,” he said. “You look at the teams that are winning, you look at the history of the NHL in the past 10 years … the teams that are making the playoffs are not the youngest teams in the NHL.”
Columbus Blue Jackets finish 2023-24 as one of youngest teams in NHL
In 2023-24, the Blue Jackets were one of the youngest teams in the NHL. The roster for the season opener had an average age of 26.3, a number that increased only slightly by year's end. Each of the 16 teams in the postseason has an average age of 28 or older.
“We’re all young and we have a lot of training to do,” Fantilli said. “But I think every single year that you’re in the league, every single game you get in the NHL, every single practice, you get to be around NHL guys – NHL guys that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of games. Maturing that way and maturing our own bodies, maturing mentally and just becoming the pros that we want to be, I think, is the next step, really.”
Vincent is not naive. He knows there are no easy solutions for an inexperienced team. Either the club will have to wait for younger players to grow into veterans or it will need to acquire veterans to lead the charge until the youth movement is ready to take over.
That's not to say the team is devoid of veterans. Kuraly, Boone Jenner, Johnny Gaudreau and Erik Gudbranson have been examples for youthful teammates to follow.
“The results, the consistent results come from consistent actions,” Kuraly said. “It can look amazing and, you know, a miracle from the outside. But if you’re in those walls on a daily basis, it’s just one foot in front of the other. But each day, you have to take a step.”
Sillinger is a part of the Blue Jackets’ young core, but he's one of the more experienced members of that group, having played in 220 NHL games before his 21st birthday.
“We got a lot of good players,” he said. “We've got a lot of good skill. If you look at our lineup, up and down, the veterans we’re surrounded by as young guys … how could you not be excited to be a part of this group? We all want to make it work and get to the level where we know we can be.”
Could a young roster work for CBJ?
In the offseason, Vincent said he will focus on making system changes that help highlight the youth on his roster, especially Sillinger, Chinakhov, Marchenko and Fantilli.
It's an approach the Blue Jackets have used before successfully.
In their most recent playoff appearance (2019-20), the Jackets' average age was 26.15, which makes them younger than this season's group. That season, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Oliver Bjorkstrand and the rest of the Blue Jackets eliminated the Toronto Maples Leafs in the qualifying round of the Toronto-based "bubble" during the COVID-19 pandemic before falling in the first round to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Can the current Blue Jackets mimic that effort and win with a young roster?
Kuraly sees that as their biggest challenge moving forward, but all he can control is setting expectations based on the players they already have.
“If we have a young team," he said, "it’s making the most of a young team.”
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets look for success in youth movement
