Comment | Jarmo Kekäläinen's speeches and displays did not clash at any point

Historic the era ended on Thursday the 15th. February, when the Columbus Blue Jackets fired the GM Jarmo Kekäläinen.

Kekäläinen managed to serve as Columbus's GM for almost eleven years. Columbus hired Kekäläinen as the first European GM in NHL history on February 13, 2013.

The Finnish pioneer worked for an exceptionally long time in the windy vantage point, as he was the NHL's third longest serving GM.

Only the St. Louis Blues Doug Armstrong (from July 2010) and the Winnipeg Jets Kevin Cheveldayoff (from June 2011) have worked longer in their current clubs than Kekäläinen in the Blue Jackets.

Kekäläinen's kicks cannot be considered a big surprise in any way. After the farcical past seasons, Columbus is still currently languishing as the jumbo team of the Eastern Conference.

For a long time, all signs pointed to the fact that the current season will be Kekäläinen's, 57, last in Columbus. The search for a new GM has already been going on behind the scenes for a long time.

Screens were given. Columbus club management had to react.

When Kekäläinen arrived in Columbus, a direction-seeking club rose from the bottom mud to a competitive playoff team under his leadership.

The best seasons in Columbus' young club history are due to the head coach hired by Kekäläinen by John Tortorella to the period.

Tortorella gave the Blue Jackets the identity they had been missing. The disciplined blue-jacket group advanced from the rock-hard division to the playoffs in four consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2020. It's a tough feat.

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There has been something rotten in that organization over the last few years.

In the 2020–21 season, however, a sharp decline began to accelerate, as a result of which Columbus has rushed back to the basement of the NHL.

Kekäläinen can take a big part of this slide.

The fiery-souled Tortorella's honestly brutal coaching style is exhausting for the players, and to that extent, the streak ended in Columbus in the 2020-21 season.

Kekäläinen's head coach hires after this have gone into the notebook.

Moved to Tortorella's place Brad Larsen was a complete fiasco choice. Under Larsen, there was no information about the tough level of demands created by Tortorella, and Columbus' playing level collapsed.

Kekäläinen's inevitable countdown actually started even before the start of this season.

A former top coach Mike Babcock's the hire went completely to the thigh when Babcock showed with his questionable tricks that he has not learned from his mistakes of the past years. Babcock didn't get to coach a single game in Columbus.

In a desperate situation, Kekäläinen took a conscious risk by hiring Babcock.

Risk-taking exploded ugly in the eyes of the entire organization. The shameful scandal was the last straw for Columbus club management.

From the experienced Tortorella to the inexperienced Larsen. Then to the experienced Babcock and through the panic solution to the inexperienced Pascal to Vincentwho is now in his first season coaching Columbus.

Pacing and wrong head coach hires have marked Kekäläinen's career as the GM of an NHL club, but this is of course not the only reason why the shoe came now.

For years already has wondered why special things happen and happen in Columbus. During Kekälä's reign in Columbus, the doors have been closed.

After the spring of 2019, the top players left Columbus first Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky and later at player stores Pierre-Luc Dubois and Seth Joneswhich has raised questions.

Kekäläinen has said in his defense that the club didn't even want to keep all the star players who left for other countries. Still, one has to question the state of the Blue Jackets' club culture.

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Kekäläinen's purpose was to build a team aiming for the Stanley Cup, but the tough talk and displays never met. Not even close.

There has been something rotten in that organization over the last few years.

In recent years, Kekäläinen tried to modify the Blue Jackets into a better pattern on the fly. Kekäläinen visited the reconstruction. He preferred to use the word retoolre-filing.

In January 2021, the ones that arrived in the Dubois store in the return mail Patrik Laine and by Jack Roslovic had to be part of this plan. In the summer of 2022, Kekäläinen bought himself additional time by acquiring the hottest name on the open market Johnny Gaudreau.

Big-name star acquisitions and new, top promises booked by the club were supposed to take Columbus to the promised land, but this plan has gone completely awry.

Laine has completely lost himself in Columbus and Kekäläinen's most expensive attachment, Gaudreau, is skiing in the shadow lands with a season salary of just under 10 million dollars.

In addition to this, the first keeper Elvis Merzlikins is reportedly tired of the hustle and bustle of Columbus and wants to go elsewhere. Also the top promise of the 20-year-old David Jirice too the treatment has aroused astonishment.

The fact that the star players are declining and some of the young players, according to reports, want to change scenery speaks harshly about the state of the club culture in Columbus.

Kekäläinen through his own work, he brought attitude and ambition to the Blue Jackets during his 11-year tenure.

A good friend of Blue Jackets puck operations manager, Kekäläinen of John Davidson for the warm thanks in connection with the kicks in Kekäläinen's direction, it is in itself a cover that the Finnish boss also did a lot of good.

Kekäläinen's purpose was to build a team aiming for the Stanley Cup, but the tough talk and displays never met. Not even close.

Success was slim. During Kekäläinen's era, Columbus advanced to the playoffs five times and won one series.

Despite Vaisu's success, Kekäläinen does not have to worry about his future work situation.

NHL GM circles are small. Once you get into the exclusive men's club, the doors will continue to open to at least lower-profile jobs in the NHL. If he wants to, Kekäläinen will surely find work in another NHL organization in the future.