Since when? Not a rhetorical question. The answer is LITERALLY, since Laine was added to the team.
It’s almost like the highest/2nd highest paid player/forward should be held accountable or responsible, when talking about “leadership”.
Do people forget the Torts/CBJ days!?! They were literally looked at as the team that got by from their “core” or “veterans” being hard workers, great “leaders”, and playing the right way, in spite of their apparent lack of “skill”.
Then Patty Laine showed up.
Kinda weird having to correct someone about their own team's recent history, but here goes:
The Blue Jackets, after years of mediocrity, had
one jolt in performances in the 2019 playoffs when for the very first time, they managed to win.... one playoff round. That's it.
You know what happened. the summer following that? It wasn't Laine. It was losing their two star players Bobrovsky and Panarin, because that's the story in Columbus.
During the 19-20 season, the Jackets immediately took a step back. It started becoming noticeable that many of the remaining players were tuning out Tortorella, who was then in his 5th season as HC. But Kekalainen didn't do shit. Again,
there was no Laine at that point. Just a lot of players having an absolutely terrible season.
Then for 20-21, incomprehensibly, they brought back Torts for a sixth season. Jarmo clearly in over his head. Rinse and repeat a season with players tuned out, and then Dubois proceeds to shamefully glide on the ice for his last shift, that will forever remain a Youtube hit.
And THEN, only THEN, did they acquire Laine.
I don't know how you managed to rewrite history to make it appear like the wheel fell off the wagon when Laine got there but that is some serious mental gymnastic. The day they acquired Laine, they were already a mentally fragile team with discontent players, a coach in his sixth season that most players had completely tuned out and their general manager was a clown.