After soaking up the sun during the Olympic break, the Columbus Blue Jackets are back on the ice and turning their focus to a critical stretch run.<\/p>\n
Forward Adam Fantilli said he spent part of the break in the Bahamas before returning to Michigan. \u201cI started off with six days in the Bahamas, then flew back to Ann Arbor to watch my brother play and hung out for a couple days before driving back yesterday,\u201d Fantilli said.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Dante Fabbro also headed to the Bahamas. \u201cI went down to the Bahamas with my fianc\u00e9e and a buddy of mine who plays in Nashville. We enjoyed the sun and got out of the cold,\u201d Fabbro said.<\/p>\n
The time away is over, and the Blue Jackets held their first practice in 13 days as they begin what coach Rick Bowness is treating like a mini training camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig emphasis was getting our legs back under us and feeling the puck again. The pace was great. It\u2019s a good feeling coming back to the rink for this last push,\u201d Fabbro said.<\/p>\n
Bowness said he liked what he saw in the first session back. \u201cI was very encouraged. A lot of jump. The guys were anxious to get back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bowness said the team plans to build intensity over the next two weeks. \u201cEach day we\u2019ll ramp it up a little more. We\u2019ve got a couple tough practices coming up. We want to be ready,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The break came at an awkward time for Columbus, which had won 11 of its previous 12 games before the pause. Still, Bowness said the focus is on restarting quickly. \u201cWe wish we could\u2019ve kept playing, but we knew it was coming. Now it\u2019s about coming out of the gate hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets\u2019 first two games back will come against the Boston Bruins and the New York Islanders, two teams Columbus is trying to catch in the standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know what we\u2019re up against. We\u2019re still chasing \u2014 and we\u2019re going to keep chasing until we see that X beside our name,\u201d Bowness said.<\/p>\n
With 26 games left, Fantilli said the urgency is clear. \u201cWe want to get right back to where we were \u2014 not miss a beat. Every single one matters. We missed by two points last year, and that still leaves a bitter taste,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After soaking up the sun during the Olympic break, the Columbus Blue Jackets are back on the ice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[1942,3644,5180,897,230,5179,7405,5,4,30278,2316,12090],"class_list":["post-463304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-adam-fantilli","tag-blue-jackets","tag-bluejackets","tag-columbus","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-columbusbluejackets","tag-dante-fabbro","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-olympic-break","tag-practice","tag-rick-bowness"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116097197245726405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}