CBJ of the Day: Boone Jenner

By William Espy

It is opening night in Columbus; the cheers of the fans grow increasingly as another player is introduced. Then all of a sudden public address announcer Greg Murray says “Number thirty-eight, Boone Jenner”. What happens next is a sight to behold. A casual hockey fan in the arena may become confused, it sounds like the passionate fans are… booing? their own player but it’s quite the contrary. The sound of “BOOOOOONE” echoes throughout the arena.

The 2011 NHL entry draft was a bit of an interesting one. Outside of the top ten, very few players have made an impact in the NHL. The second round however, would have a surprising amount of talent coming out of it. Players such as Nikita Kucherov, Tomas Jurco, John Gibson, and three current Blue Jackets (Brandon Saad, William Karlsson, and Boone Jenner) would hear their names called in the first round of the second day.  The Blue Jackets first had been sent to Philadelphia in the infamous trade that brought Jeff Carter to Columbus because of this, the 37^th overall pick was a very important one for the Blue Jackets. Once the time for their first pick of the draft finally came, GM Scott Howson called the name of Oshawa Generals forward Boone Jenner.

Prior to the draft, Jenner was seen as a possible mid to late first rounder but luckily for the Blue Jackets he fell to the second round. NHL Central Scouting’s Chris Edwards had this to say about the young center:

"The phrase, 'I want 20 of those guys on my team,' gets overused, but it not only applies to Boone, he can be the poster boy for it. Boone does what it takes to win. He blocks shots, wins battles along the boards and is an outstanding forechecker. He wants to be first to the puck every time. He's solid on his skates and fights through checks on his way to the net.”

Boone could do almost anything in the OHL and that has carried over to the NHL. During the 2012 World Junior Championships, Jenner faced a three game suspension following this hit:

Jenner has however proven that he has cleaned up his game to remove hits like that. Following the injury decimated 2014-2015 season, Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch revealed this statistic:

#CBJ Boone Jenner and Brandon Dubinsky only dressed in the same game 13 times this season. CBJ was 11-0-2 in those game.

— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) April 12, 2015

STATUS: Nearly Untouchable

It’s not every day that a 22 year old is in the running to be named captain of an NHL team. Had it not been for Nick Foligno’s amazing season, could we have seen the “C” stitched on to the #38? Possibly. While there were still more candidates who likely would have taken over the role like Brandon Dubinsky or Jack Johnson, Jenner would have been up in the race as well. Now that Foligno is captain, as long as Boone Jenner stays a Columbus Blue Jacket, there is very little doubt about who his replacement will be when he decides to give up the captaincy.