Arace and Porty: The Blue Jackets' season is underway | Cannon Balls

um what we have today and and the this edition of of the cannonballs is uh is it's it's now uh what is it friday the 2nd of october 2026 as we record it's uh 11 in the morning and it is the morning after the blue jackets home opener a a six to three victory Over the Buffalo Sabres.

And one game, it is only.

You know, that said, Portie, what I wrote at disrespected.com essentially was my eyes were keen toward a couple of keys.

And they were discussed during training camp.

And we'll get to training camp and how that went in a second.

But...

I focused on, okay, what have they been talking about? They've been talking about special teams.

They have two new assistant coaches.

Each is in charge of one or the other special team.

And it hurt them last year.

They were among the worst in the league with the man advantage and when they were down.

And secondly, Bones talked about the very frustrating crash at the end of the season, which cost him a playoff spot.

And it was a crash right off a cliff.

Boom.

Goodbye playoffs for the sixth year in a row.

And one of the things that he focused on regarding that is the fact that the team, the wheels fell off because of, you know, one of the big reasons he felt was because of a couple injuries.

Now, yeah.

They were critical injuries.

Damon Severson was playing with Zach Wierenski on the top defensive pair.

And their underlying numbers in terms of their importance to the offense, let alone the defense, were amazing.

And it's one reason why people are looking askance at the Blue Jackets.

Can you get that two years in a row? But that's another point.

And Matthew Olivier was also injured at the time.

And down they went, Porty.

And so those were the things that I was looking at, was how does this injury-riddled defense respond in game one? And two, you know, what's the initial impression, I should say? A book wasn't written last night.