The Blue Jackets “Aint That Pretty at All”

The Columbus Blue Jackets 1st period of play in one picture (Photo by Cornell University Library)

By Rick Gethin

“We really got schooled today” ~ CBJ coach Ken Hitchcock

There is absolutely no way to sugarcoat the play of the Columbus Blue Jackets after losing to the Detroit Red Wings 9-1 in Nationwide Arena Wednesday night. It was a train wreck that started with the drop of the puck in the 1st period and went speedily downhill from there. At times, it was painful to watch. They gave up 4 goals in the 1st period, 2 goals in the 2nd and 3 more goals in the 3rd. The lone Columbus goal came courtesy of Rick Nash midway through the 2nd period. The 8 point gap ties the Blue Jackets record for largest margin of defeat with an 8-0 loss to Boston on 2/4/02 and a 10-2 loss to San Jose on 3/30/02.

The Blue Jackets skated away from the style of play that wins them games. Poor passing, neutral zone turnovers and a lack of checking contributed to the poor play. “We didn’t play the right way or do the right things,” said an upset Jason Chimera. Columbus got back on their heels early and never recovered. The lessons learned in their playoff series against the Red Wings in April seemed to be forgotten. Mike Commodore summed up the feeling in the locker room after the game, saying “It was a total disaster.” They were not making smart dumps of the puck which gave Detroit ample opportunity to get the puck out of their zone quickly.

The Blue Jackets after 2 periods of play (Photo by Cornell University Library/Flickr)

Columbus goalie Steve Mason was pulled in the 1st period, replaced by back-up Mathieu Garon. He played well enough that the collective thought was that he would finish out the game in net. Alas, it was not to be. Mason returned at the beginning of the 2nd period and pretty much picked up where he left off. Mason never seemed to find his groove. After the game Garon addressed Mason coming back into the game. “Sometimes you want to put the goalie back in so he kind of forgets about what happened. It didn’t turn out that way,” he said. The loss cannot be layed totally at Masons’ feet; it was a team breakdown. “It’s been a long time coming, I think,” said Steve Mason. “The things we’ve been making mistakes on has been over and over. It really blew up in our face tonight. We knew going in (to the game) that they were a top team and it was going to be a tough effort to play against them. We just backed right down,” he said.

Detroit shrugged off their 5-1 loss to Toronto over the weekend and came into Nationwide Arena focused on winning. Columbus, on the other hand, lacked any focus and it showed. “This wasn’t our team tonight,” said RJ Umberger, ” we’re way better than this. Hopefully it’s an eye-opener for everybody here.” That is what’s disheartening for the Blue Jackets faithful; they’ve seen this team play so much better.

This sums up the loss to Detroit, 9-1 (Photo by Gregory Palmer/Flickr)

Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock held a rare meeting of the players in the locker room after he was done with his press conference. One could feel that the guys in the room were not looking forward to the coach walking through the door. The assembled media could tell that the coach wasn’t happy with the way his guys executed the game. “When you don’t check, you look slow,” said Hitchcock. “When you don’t check, you don’t win a board battle. When you don’t check, you get beat to every loose puck. When you have that mindset, you’re in trouble.” As the coach is fond of saying, Detroit put their foot on the Blue Jackets throat and never let up. “We’re not going to put it behind us (the loss) and just write it off,” he said. “We got schooled by a hungry team that got beat 5-1 in their last game and they were ready to play; we weren’t.”

Columbus has to find a way to put this humiliating loss behind them, yet not forget the lesson to be learned. If there is one positive to be taken from this game, it’s this; the Blue Jackets are still in 2nd place in the Central Division, one point ahead of Detroit. It was a bad loss Blue Jackets fans, but it’s not the end of the world. They’re not quite a quarter of the way through the season and there are many more games to be played. It wasn’t competitive and it sure wasn’t graceful. And in the words of Warren Zevon, it “Aint that pretty at all.”

Rick Gethin is the Associate Editor of The Hockey Writers and also the Columbus Blue Jackets correspondent.