Back in December, I wrote an piece about how the Columbus Blue Jackets were playing well and putting themselves in playoff position, but it wasn’t good enough for a restless fan base. After that post went up, the Jackets lost 13 of their next 20.
I’m an idiot.
Still! The team had banked enough points in an unusually down Metropolitan Division and were still in playoff contention until about last month or so. That’s when we all collectively looked at the standings, the schedule and the odds...and gulped. It was a slow erosion until, depending on whose model you preferred, Columbus’s chances dwindled to essentially a coin flip (Sports Club Stats had the Jackets’ odds at 40.