The Scott Howson Questionnaire

A friend over at Dark Blue Jacket passed along a questionairre that was made by Aaron Portzline for the Columbus Dispatch. They wanted some bloggers to answer the questions about how the Columbus Blue Jackets have played so far this season. Here are my answers to the questions.

Q: Given the expectations surrounding this club heading into this season, how surprised are you to be closer to last place than a playoff spot in the Western Conference?

A: I’m not completely surprised that we are fighting near the bottom of the playoff picture. Last year’s team completely over-achieved in the 2nd half of last year. If you remember we were in a very similar situation last year when it came to the Blue Jackets overall record at this point last year.

Q: What player, what aspect of the club, has been most surprising?

A: Steve Mason, but it’s not surprising in a good way. I guess rookie goaltenders don’t have a great success rate in the past decade or so. Jim Carey had a great rookie year too, but teams figured him out and he had a mediocre career bouncing between NHL and AHL.

Q: Why is coach Ken Hitchcock the right coach for this club right now?

A: Hitchcock is the right coach for this team because he commands respect and the fact that he’s a teaching head coach. He can get the most out of these young players, even if it means sending Filatov to the KHL to get more ice time. He’s very methodical in his approach to hockey. He emphasizes checking and trying to win all of the little battles in the war to win the game.

Q: You have one of the youngest clubs in the NHL. Does he work well with a group like that?

A: I think Hitchcock could coach the Mighty Ducks to a decent record in the NHL. He can coach stars and young talent. It’s unfair to judge him clearly on the Nikita Filatov experience. Look how Jakub Voracek dedicated himself and he’s playing great hockey under Hitchcock.

Q: Do you feel like you over-estimated Derick Brassard, expecting him to be a No. 1 center this season?

A: Yes I do, he teased us with some great play before he suffered his injury last season. I was expecting big numbers from him equivalent to what R.J. Umberger is putting up this year.

Q: How close did you come to making a deal over the last few days, before the NHL’s holiday roster freeze went into effect on Saturday?

A: I think Nikita Filatov is getting traded to another team within the next 8-10 months.

Q: Do you consider talking during the next week, even though you can’t make a move until after Dec. 26?

A: The Blue Jackets are always looking to improve their team, but they aren’t in “win now” mode. They are building for a run in the next one to two years.

Q: Any thought given to a minor league call-up?

A: I think they should call up D John Moore, just to see what they have and how long it would be until he’s a full-time roster member. Given the injury to Klesla and the fact that the defense isn’t very good right now, if Columbus keep this slide, get Moore some ice time and build for next year.

Q: You made one change to your blue line last offseason, adding defenseman Anton Stralman. If you had it to do over again, would you have done more to upgrade the defense?

A: Of course, I thought that the addition of Anton Stralman was to make up for the lack of depth and he was a puck-moving defenseman, this didn’t didn’t have a consistent one of those until the trade. We hope that the you defenseman in the minors matures fast, so we can challenge for a high Western Conference playoff spot.

Q: Could this club use another strong veteran presence in the dressing room?

A: I think this team needs one of its young players, like a Voracek to step up and become a leader. Everyone looks up to Rick Nash as a leader, but he’s still a very young guy. I would love to see Columbus get a veteran defenseman to teach the young talent how to play up to an NHL level.

Q: You talk about “going through the process” and “working through it”, but isn’t that what last season was about? Didn’t you feel like you’d already gone through all of this?

A: Yes, we did the things that we needed to do to make the playoffs last year. This year was supposed to be building on the success of last year, but we have hit some road bumps and injuries have hit our team in key areas. (I wanted to sound like Scott Howson in answering that question).

Q: Do you need an enforcer?

A: Of course we do.

Q: [Why or] Why not?

A: Every major star had an enforcer. Gretzky had Marty McSorley so much that when Gretzky was traded to the Kings from Edmonton, McSorley was added in the trade. You must protect your stars and Nash needs a bodyguard out there.

Q: Sitting here, five days before Christmas, do you still feel as if that’s a playoff-caliber club?

A: No I don’t, but anything can happen in the 2nd half of the season. Are the Blue Jackets going to make huge moves this season? No, not at all, but if they just try to fix their mistakes and either score an extra goal a game or prevent one from scoring, this team could still be in the hunt for a #8 seed in the playoffs. This team just has to do the little things in the game and they could be alright.