Matt Duchene faces the cameras after yet another loss for his new team.

The Duchene curse continues.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Matt Duchene faces the cameras after yet another loss for his new team.

The Duchene Curse might actually be a real thing at this point. 

The Columbus Blue Jackets entered Sunday with what has to be viewed as a must win game on their schedule. In spite of the massive acquisitions that were made by Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen ahead of the trade deadline for the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season the Blue Jackets had won just 1 of their last 3 games entering Sunday's game against the Winnipeg Jets and had fallen out of a playoff spot as a result. 

In spite of desperately needing the win against the Jets on Sunday the Blue Jackets were unable to pull out the win and in fact were entirely unable to walk away from the game with even a single point. The loss leaves the Blue Jackets outside of the NHL's current playoff picture for the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs and after the game the cameras were rolling to get the reactions from the players. Front and center in terms of the media's interest was star forward Matt Duchene who was one of those major deadline acquisitions from Jarmo Kekäläinen and it was clear that Duchene was struggling to cope with the loss. 

Not only was Duchene brought in to produce offensively, something that he has failed to do at the pace he had set for himself in Ottawa, but there is also now a stigma surrounding him when it comes to his teams losing. While Duchene was in Colorado the Avalanche were terrible and following his departure in a trade the Avalanche largely turned things around. When he joined the Senators in that very same trade the team completely collapsed and now that he has been traded to the Blue Jackets the team is struggling to string together wins at the most critical stage of their season.

There's no doubt in my mind that should the Blue Jackets fail to make the post season that these aggressive moves could end up costing Jarmo Kekäläinen his job as general manager, and he might not be the only one either. The pressure is on in Columbus and I think everyone from the front office to the bench is feeling it.

[pub]


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