A big story coming into this NHL season was Pierre-Luc Dubois and his contract situation with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He ended up signing a two year deal worth $10 million and while he pretty much stated he didn’t want to be in Columbus he said it wouldn’t be a distraction.
Well….we are five games into the Blue Jackets season and guess who is the biggest story for the Blue Jackets?!? Yup, that’s right Pierre-Luc Dubois!
This should come as a shock to no one as every time a player has a contract issue it always ends up being a distraction. Last night the Blue Jackets lost their second game in a row in overtime to the Tampa Bay Lightning, bringing their record on the season to 1-2-2.
An overtime game should mean some decent ice time for a teams number one center right? John Tortorella would say otherwise as Dubois finished the game with 3:55 of ice time. He was benched from the second period on after this shift…
Look, I like Torts as a coach I really do and I totally get where he is coming from with trying to send a message. Could Dubois have shown a little more effort here on this shift? Of course he could have, but there isn’t enough here to warrant benching him for the rest of the game. I can understand maybe sitting him for a few shifts but to not play him the entire second or third period is just insane.
Here are some of the comments from Torts post game press conference…
-Walsh
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