Keith Tkachuk sees some clear parallels between the Columbus Blue Jackets team John Davidson is taking over and the St. Louis Blues franchise he helped turn around, as he told Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch.
“I’m sure it will be very similar to what he faced in St. Louis,” Tkachuk said. “Our team was kind of gutted. Our fans were frustrated. We had to start from scratch, and he knew that coming in. He didn’t panic. He built and built and built. And he did it in his unique way.”
Observers told Portzline that his style comes down to getting to know people, reading them and making sure people are on the same page.
And getting rid of the people who won’t fall in line.
“There’s an all-inclusive mentality, absolutely, and there’s tremendous patience in that man,” One NHL executive said. “But he ends up just extinguishing people who have their own agendas, or people who undermine the effort to all push in the same direction. He sniffs out the bad apples in a hurry. He has no time for those people.”
Thanks to the lockout, he’ll have some time to soak everything in and begin to identify “those people.”