The first few months of the season weren't very kind to the Blue Jackets, but December sure was.
In a month where more often than not the Jackets were outshot - sometimes significantly - they managed to win a bunch of close games and entered the new year on a 10-1-1 run.
While the team as a whole didn't fare very well in possession, recent acquisition Jeremy Morin and recently extended Nick Foligno, as well as a couple others, did.
When Jeremy Morin was on the ice the Jackets generated better than 50% of the shot attempts whereas they hovered around 40% when he was off the ice. Similar can be said about Foligno, Brandon Dubinsky and Scott Hartnell, but for the rest of the crew the numbers were ugly.
The bottom-6 was absolutely crushed on a nightly basis. Even though Ryan Johansen and Cam Atkinson are OK relative to the team, they also came out on the losing end of the shot attempt battle more often than not.
As for the defense, Jack Johnson, who is regularly a possession anchor, led the way and did so despite logging big minutes against tough competition.
Kevin Connauton is also sitting pretty, while on the flip side Fedor Tyutin has struggled mightily since returning from injury.
Overall Columbus was a 42.6 possession team (ahead of only Buffalo and Toronto) during 5 vs 5 play in December, and if that doesn't change going forward they won't be winning many games.
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