money Columbus Blue Jackets hope AHL demotion is a wake-up call for rookie Trey Fix-Wolansky
Add tardiness to the list of reasons Blue Jackets players have missed games this season.
Rookie forward Trey Fix-Wolansky overslept Saturday morning, missed a team meeting and was demoted to the Cleveland Monsters rather than facing the Florida Panthers in the Blue Jackets' 7-0 blowout loss at Nationwide Arena. Justin Richards, son of former Blue Jackets coach Todd Richards, was added to a list of Monsters players recalled as replacements.
“I feel bad for the kid, but these things happen,” Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. “It’s a great way to learn, even though it’s painful. I doubt he’ll ever miss another meeting again.”
Fix-Wolansky, the Monsters’ leading scorer, didn’t record a point and finished with a –2 plus/minus rating in Cleveland’s 4-1 loss to Hersey on Saturday at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
He might’ve stayed in the NHL as a healthy scratch under normal circumstances, but the Blue Jackets and Monsters are scrambling due to the number of Columbus players who are hurt. Seven of the Blue Jackets’ 20 players Saturday had been recalled from Cleveland as fill-ins within the previous week, including three on Saturday following the morning skate.
Along with Fix-Wolansky's departure, the Blue Jackets played without forwards Jack Roslovic and Lane Pederson, who each sustained upper-body injuries in a 2-1 overtime loss Thursday at the Boston Bruins. Also missing were goalie Elvis Merzlikins (lower body), defensemen Zach Werenski (shoulder), Adam Boqvist (illness), Jake Bean (shoulder), Nick Blankenburg (ankle) and Erik Gudbranson (shoulder) plus forwards Patrik Laine (triceps), Justin Danforth (shoulder) and Mathieu Olivier (bone bruise).
That’s why Fix-Wolansky went back to the Monsters, who are in a tight race for the final playoff spot in the AHL North. Fix-Wolansky leads Cleveland with 26 goals, 41 assists and 67 points, but hasn’t recorded a point in seven games for the Blue Jackets over two stints.
He would’ve had two more opportunities to get on the scoresheet this weekend had he not overslept.
“I’m sure he’ll have a couple more alarms set up next time,” Kekalainen said. “It’s happened to the best of them sometimes, and he’s going to get a clean slate after the incident. It’s just a lesson learned, move on and that’s it.”
Florida Panthers' Duclair values time with Columbus Blue Jackets
Anthony Duclair’s time in Columbus didn’t last a full season, but he did learn some valuable lessons from that 2018-19 campaign that remain with him as one of the Panthers’ top forwards.
After signing with the Blue Jackets as a free agent in the 2018 offseason, Duclair became a top-nine forward under former Columbus coach John Tortorella. He was dealt at the trade deadline to the Ottawa Senators for Ryan Dzingel, but looks back on that season fondly.
“It’s always good to come back here,” Duclair said. “I had some good times here and I loved it. I loved all the teammates I had when I was here. We had a good group and did pretty well, so all those old memories come back.”
More: The race for last place: Where the Blue Jackets stand in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes
Duclair, who had three assists in the Panthers’ rout Saturday, doesn’t use an agent and negotiated his own three-year, $9 million contract with Florida that runs through next season. That was after a one-year deal with Florida in 2020-21 that followed a successful two-year stint in Ottawa. During free agency, Duclair contacted multiple general managers to see about interest.
One was Kekalainen and another was Panthers GM Bill Zito, who signed Duclair after leaving his role as Blue Jackets associate GM. Looking back at his career, Duclair is grateful for his partial season in Columbus.
“I just learned how to be a pro,” he said. “That was the biggest thing. That was probably the hardest training camp I ever had and then the preseason and practices were challenging. When you come to practice, you come to work every day and there was just that professional attitude in the locker room, so I took a few things with me and learned a few things for sure.”
Columbus Blue Jackets add another Ohio AAA Blue Jackets alum
Make it five alumni of the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets Tier I developmental program to play for the Blue Jackets after Richards logged his first game for Columbus on Saturday.
Richards followed the skate marks of Kole Sherwood, Roslovic, Sean Kuraly and Carson Meyer as products of the local AAA program to play for “the big club,” as Ohio AAA Blue Jackets president Ed Gingher likes to put it.
Richards played just his second NHL game after making his debut for the New York Rangers at the end of the 2020-21 season. He skated 13:54 and logged four hits centering a second line with Kent Johnson and Emil Bemstrom as wingers.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets demote Fix-Wolansky as wake-up call
