When the Columbus Blue Jackets opened the season with eight straight loses, the team’s management was stunned and not sure what to do. That was the message general manager Jarmo Kekalainen and president of hockey operations John Davidson left fans with in their final press conference of the season on Monday.

“I thought our team going into this season was a playoff team,” Davidson said. “There’s a lot of ‘what could have been’ type of thing. We wasted an opportunity, and that’s factual.”

It is fair to say the roster should have grown leaps and bounds. The team has had a lot of high draft picks in recent years, with a proven goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky backstopping them. Players like Boone Jenner and Ryan Johansen were supposed to be given a boost by a trade for Brandon Saad that was supposed to spark the team’s offence. And another year of Ryan Murray and David Savard on defence should have been nothing but positive.

You can read the rest of the story on The Hockey Writers.com.