The four Blue Jackets players on injured reserve are Marian Gaborik, Nathan Horton, Brandon Dubinsky and Jared Boll. They range in age from 27 to 31, and they are, relatively speaking, elderly.
Two other players, Derek MacKenzie, 32, and Nikita Nikitin, 27, were scratched because of injuries. MacKenzie is Grandpa.
The Jackets are the youngest team in the NHL when they are healthy. They skewed even younger last night, when they played the Nashville Predators at Nationwide Arena. The average age of the 20 players who were in uniform was 25.25. To put that in perspective, the Buffalo Sabres are the next-youngest team with an average age of 26.03. The Predators' average age is nearly 27.
The Jackets are a team of puppies, playing without a captain.
The captain thing has been a source of much debate among those who follow the team. A system of rotating alternates worked fine last season. Given their lack of consistency this season, it feels like a weakness.
At this point, though, why name a captain? Who is worthy this morning who was not worthy at the start of training camp? My sense is they do not feel they have the right guy, and they are waiting on someone like Ryan Johansen or Boone Jenner to rise to the fore. According to an NHL executive who shall remain anonymous, Jenner might have that quiet power to shame his teammates, if need be, into maximum effort.
That sort of thing was missing last night, when the Jackets were faced with a classic trap game. The first home game after a nine-day, five-game, multiple-time-zone trip is a killer. It takes strong leadership (and, as Ken Hitchcock used to say, followship) to slog out a victory on such a night.
John Davidson, president of hockey operations, and general manager Jarmo Kekalainen probably were squirming right along with the fans as they watched their team doze through this one. They will squirm until they can squirm no more. It might be weeks. It might be months. They preach patience.
"The important thing is the progression of the youth," Davidson said after yesterday's morning skate.
"We were 3-2 on the road trip," he said. "Eleven points in (the previous) nine games. Glass half-full. We're staying positive. It's all about young players getting better."
There is no excuse for the points the Jackets have let slip through their fingers, or simply handed away, through the first 25 games. There is no doubt they have squandered an opportunity to assert themselves in a weak Metropolitan Division. There is no explaining away last night.
But they will be patient.
If there is a poster boy for this team, it is Johansen. Think about what he came into after he was drafted in 2011. He was kept with the big club rather than being sent back to juniors. He had Scott Arniel coaching him. He had Jeff Carter offering him advice. It was a terrible time and place to be 18.
"It feels like a generation ago," Johansen said yesterday morning. "That first year was such a roller coaster, I feel like I've seen it all. … I also feel I have another couple of levels to go."
Johansen, 21, was the youngest forward on the ice last night. He has as many goals (eight) and more points (16) than any other Jackets forward. He is like a lot of his teammates, missing what it takes to win a trap game with a depleted lineup.
But here is a thought: If the Jackets come away from this season with a developed No. 1 center in Johansen and a sure No. 1 defenseman in Ryan Murray, 20, they will have two key pieces that, to this point, they have never possessed.
Maybe, in the interim, they will find a groove. Can they?
Patience is a hard go.