There are many good candidates for a breakout season on the Jackets, however GM Jarmo Kekalainen said it best when he said a healthy Ryan Murray will be the Blue Jackets biggest acquisition. Due to his injuries, he has not been able to reach that level that he expects himself to play at and that the team expected when they drafted him second overall. If he can stay fully healthy which it appears he may be able to do, he will finally be able to have that breakout season.
This is a question I've seen popping up more and more every year. The Bengals need to make a change sooner rather than later if they want to win with the core they have now. The choice comes down to replacing Lewis or replacing Andy Dalton. The only realistic solution would have to be replacing Lewis. With the amount of money Dalton is making over the next few years that removes any possibility of removing him and with Lewis's contract expiring soon it only makes sense to get rid of him. This is all if the Bengals cannot get past the first round of the playoffs again. If they miss the playoffs or get eliminated in the first round, I'd expect him to be gone next season. It may even take a Super Bowl for him to keep his job at this point.
I think there will be quite a few players who will surprise most fans this year. One of them being Boone Jenner, I believe he will continue to progress the way he has been the past few years and will be able to add more offensive production than ever before. Another one would be Alexander Wennberg. Wennberg played very well defensively last season, however he lacked offensively for the most part. Now that he has time to focus on offense, expect him to put up much better numbers this year. Finally on the blue line, I see Kevin Connauton earning a regular role on the team, he put up some good numbers last year and I expect him to only grow on that and show some talent that fans didn't even know he had.
This is a difficult question, and there are many players that would fit perfectly with this scenario for example; imagine Brandon Saad scoring a quick goal in order to give the Jackets an early lead in his first game in the union blue. Nick Foligno scoring first as the newly named captain of the team would be phenomenal or even Jared Boll showing his new workout results and proving his critics wrong. However I'm going to go a bit of the unconventional route, I expect the first goal to be from Brandon Dubinsky on a deflection that goes five hole.
No comments:
Post a Comment