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"Will the Jackets be joining the [Stanley Cup Playoff] party? The Central Division is going to have a huge say in the answer."

The Columbus Blue Jackets have six games remining.  The NHL Playoffs begin April 15.  The big question is, will the Jackets be joining the party?

The NHL’s Central Division is going to have a huge say in the answer to that question.  The Jackets are an infuriating 8-9-2 against the Central Division so far, going into these last five division games.  They go like this: Two against Nashville (here tonight and there Saturday); two against Chicago (here Sunday, there next Wednesday); and one at St. Louis next Friday.  After that, it’s the home finale against Dan Fritsche and the Minnesota Wild (I know he’s not their marquee player, but he’s a former Blue Jacket and the team’s first Ohio-born player).

Tonight, the Jackets face off against the Nashville Predators, a team that has performed very well against the Blue Jackets over the last few seasons.  However, at least the series is even this year.  The Jackets pretty much have to win this series.  I’m not sure that only three wins out of six will get the Jackets in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Not when the teams in 7^th (Nashville, two points behind) and 8^th (St. Louis, three points behind) are right there in the thick of it all.

Win all three games against those two teams?  Maybe.  The Jackets still need to beat Chicago at least once.  I think four wins in the last six games will keep the CBJ in there, maybe even still in sixth.  Anything fewer than four wins, and they’ll need a lot of help to stay in… plus they’d probably draw a first-round matchup with either Detroit or San Jose.

So, there was an interesting development over the weekend: Columbus hockey fans met TJ Oshie (or at least that’s when I first became aware of him.  I don’t remember him factoring into the previous matchups against St. Louis).  Quick guy… rookie… and it turns out he’s a bit of a hitter.  I’m still not totally convinced he’s a clean hitter.  Anyway, at one point he’s coming out of the box and hits Rick Nash head-on, which obviously got St. Louis fans fired up in their own barn.  It got replayed several times.  I personally thought his elbow (and stick) were a bit high, considering the NHL says it wants to crack down on that stuff.  However, there was no call.

Anyway, I don’t think it was even a half-hour after the shootout ended (if that long) that the hit was on YouTube, and @StLouisGameTime was on Twitter proclaiming that Oshie had “destroyed” Nash on that hit, and that FSN Ohio announcers “whine about it.”  I took a little exception to “destroyed”… after all, Nasher got right up.  To me, “destroying” someone means they don’t get up for a couple minutes, like when Claude Lemieux boarded Kris Draper in the 1996 Western Conference final, or when Todd Bertuzzi tackled Steve Moore, smashed him face-first into the ice, broke a couple vertabrae, ended Moore's career, etc.

I also took exception to the “whine” comment.  Like I said, the elbow and stick looked high.

Needless to say, Jackets fans were gunning for Oshie the next night in Nationwide, whether the team was or not.  He and Nash did indeed meet again.  Nash was coming right at Oshie, Oshie dekes the puck aside, and honestly, the hit that sent Nash flying looked an awful lot like a cross-check.  Again, no call… again, maybe it’s just me.  Maybe it just looked like a penalty, because the Jackets have had even weaker calls that that against them.

That aside, I have to say it is fun reading other fans’ stuff on Twitter, whether it’s for our guys or not.  And I have to hand it to Oshie.  This guy is a rookie, he’s pretty damn fast, he can score, and he has developed a following among Blues fans that I can compare to what CBJ fans have for Jared Boll and had (and probably still have) for Jody Shelley.  I’d even compare it to Nashville’s affection for their Napoleonic thug, Jordin Tootoo.  However, make no mistake.  Tootoo and Oshie are two different types of player.  Oshie is what the NHL would call a “pest.”  He gets under guys’ skin, he’s not exceptionally dirty in his play (at least not that I’ve seen, those hits on Nash aside), and the dude can score.  He reminds me of guys like the aforementioned Claude Lemieux (on the dirty side, but he could score), and Ville Nieminen (pesky scoring threat from Colorado’s ’01 Cup team).

Jordin Tootoo?  Well… take Oshie… add unfounded cockiness, subtract about two inches, add dirty cheap shots, subtract offensive threat (or talent)… yep, that about sums it up.  The guy’s a one-trick pony, folks.

I think we’ll be talking about TJ Oshie a lot longer, too -- long after Tootoo is only remembered as the guy who bit Tyler Wright during a fight five years ago.

There is the one problematic thing they have in common, though.  They have managed to get under the Jackets’ skin, and into their heads, whether they score goals or not.  And that is what has to stop in the three remaining matchups against Nashville and St. Louis.

The Blue Jackets’ redemption has to begin tonight.  Their backs are almost against the wall, and it’s time to get some distance.

Go Jackets!

Tags: columbus blue jackets, jordin tootoo, nashville predators, nhl playoff push, st. louis blues, tj oshie