Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Ken Hitchcock is seeing a dip in play from the stars that got the Jackets to the playoffs in 2009.

One year after finally cracking the playoffs, it's business as usual for the Blue Jackets.

Somehow, the cellar feels colder and damper to the Columbus Blue Jackets this season than it does for, say, the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Edmonton Oilers. Both Canadian cities were ready for a rebuilding season; both sets of fans knew that their clubs would, at best, flirt with a playoff spot in '09-'10.

In Columbus however, the spadework that took place over the team's first seven playoff-less seasons was rewarded last spring with the franchise's first ever post-season berth.

It had The Goalie in Steve Mason. It signed The Franchise — Rick Nash — for four more years. It had a coach who has taken a team to a Stanley Cup before in Ken Hitchcock.

And this season it has something else that no one expected: A team with more victories (15) than only the woeful Carolina Hurricanes heading into Game No. 45 at Edmonton Thursday night.

"Nobody saw this drop-off. We started (this season) 12-6-3," said GM Scott Howson. "Now, seven weeks later we've dropped almost out of sight. Everyone is just sort of bewildered by it. Including the players."

Don't forget the head coach.

On Wednesday, in the midst of the most perplexing and disappointing seasons in the career of a lifetime hockey man, Hitchcock stood inside Rexall Place pondering his predicament. In the city where it all began for him, a few words from an old coach came to mind.

"He said, 'Did you sign up to win? Or did you sign up to coach? Because you can't do both,'" Hitchcock said with a smile. "'If you signed up to win, and that's all you signed up for when you got in this business, then you might as well get lost. It ain't going to work.'"

And so Hitchcock, and the Blue Jackets, are losers once again.

They took a skein of three wins in 24 starts into Rexall Place Thursday, and the Jackets have returned to that familiar spot at the bottom of the West, like the 40-year-old who keeps returning to his parents' basement.

"We wanted to take the next step… Well, it didn't happen," mused Hitchcock, whose job is certainly on the line here. "I've never experienced anything like this. I haven't had the constant, knocking on the door, backing down the steps. Knocking on the door, backing down the steps.

"It's the first time in my life I've ever slept with a notepad next to (his bed). You do a lot of thinking, a lot of reflection. Like the players. They go through a lot too, you know."

The coach may get fired, but the players are the ones who simply are not performing. That starts in goal, where Steve Mason's game has dropped off big-time.

In his rookie season last year, Mason's 2.29 goals against average ranked No. 2 in the entire NHL. This season his GAA is 2.62, as Mason went from an invite to the Olympic team's summer camp to a guy who is letting in an awful goal every other night.

"Everything came so easy to him last year," Howson said. "He didn't have a summer, he was recuperating from knee surgery. He gets to training camp, hurts his knee again, has another surgery. Waits another five or six weeks, then goes to the minors for three games.

"First game up against the Edmonton Oilers, he wins 5-4 and he never looks back. You forgot, with him, how hard the league is. Because he made it look so easy."

"Defence and goaltending wins championships," added Hitchcock, "and we're sitting here minus three of our top six defencemen. And we haven't been as good in goal as (Mason) wanted to be. As we wanted (Mason) to be.

"He was the story last year. He covered up a lot of messes for us. He hasn't been able to cover up the messes the way he did last year."

With 39 points, the 14th place Maple Leafs sit just six points out of a playoff spot in the weaker Eastern Conference. But 39 points in the West on Jan. 7 is a death sentence.

The Blue Jackets are already 14 points below the cut-off. The season is toast.

And so — if ownership decides to swallow two more seasons at US $1.2 million after this one on his contract — might be Hitchcock.

"We're all responsible for the on-ice product, but he's the first in line," admitted Howson. "That's the way it is. For all coaches in all major sports."