The Columbus Blue Jackets enter their game Saturday night against the Tampa bay Lightning not in a panic, but in need of a win. A regulation loss to the Lightning would put the Blue Jackets at the bottom of the league standings pending the outcome of the Flames/Golden Knights game later that night.
Five games into the season, there is plenty of time to turn things around. But there is the thing about losing too many points early in the season and then having to spend the rest of the time playing catch up.
The Blue Jackets know what’s in front of them. Head coach Dean Evason told the media on Friday he expects their best game of the season. Practice was reportedly more quiet and focused.
On Saturday morning, Evason and defenseman Denton Mateychuk spoke about their last game against the Avalanche and how that wasn’t themselves. They also addressed some early offensive struggles.
Work Ethic
The Blue Jackets pride themselves on being a hard working team. That aspect of their game didn’t materialize Thursday night against the Avalanche. It was their worst game of the early season.
That 4-1 loss encapsulated how the night played out for the Blue Jackets. Despite an early lead, they allowed four unanswered goals while allowing the Avalanche to control large stretches of the game.
Evason believes the difference between being a good team or not comes down to work.
“We’re a good team if we play the right way. If you don’t, then we’re not a good team,” Evason said. “And we weren’t last game. It’s uncharacteristic which is good, right? So we’re ready to go here tonight. Hopefully the adjustments that we made, talked about will be applied here this evening.”
Mateychuk says that has to start from the first shift.
“You don’t need one to get into it,” Mateychuk said. “You go out there and be hard from the start. I think we lacked that in the last game and I think our practice yesterday, we worked on it. I think we’re going to go out there and show off right from the get go.”
Mateychuk took it a step further and said they wanted to be on the “jackets side” tonight. It’s a concept that is second nature to these players. But it’s also what they need to do in order to find success.
“I think being aggressive using your body for positioning is going to be important tonight,” Mateychuk said. “And being on the D side of it, we call it the ‘jackets side’, I think that’s going to be important. We watch the video and when we’re talking through it, it’s the jackets side of the puck. It’s a term that’s easy to use now. They installed it in our brains.”
Mateychuk alluded to the fact that it’s how they handle things defensively. They weren’t in position for a lot of Thursday night. They look to do a much better job of being on the right side of the puck against another tough opponent in the Lightning.
If they hope to do that, they’ll need to bring the work ethic they’re known for.
Offensive Concerns
Not counting the game against the Minnesota Wild, the Blue Jackets have scored a total of four goals in their three losses. While teams go through ups and downs, they also monitor their approach as well as some other stats to see if they like the direction they’re going.
Both Evason and Mateychuk do like the direction despite the lack of results so far.
“We obviously go through stats. We go through the video. We go through chances. It’s funny how it goes like that, right? Because you guys know it’s one night that everything goes in the net and there’s some nights and nothing goes in the net. You just have to stay the course and if we weren’t getting chances even when we talked about our power play not scoring, we’re still getting chances on it. So you got to believe you’re going to score eventually.”
“We’re not pushing panic buttons. We just want to get our work ethic up. We want to score goals like the Columbus Blue Jackets score goals. That’s the grittier type of goal and getting to the net and all those good things and cliches. But it’s true. It’s proven. We got enough examples of how to play and how we have success. Our team knows it individually and we know it as a group.”
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Mateychuk pointed back to the first three games in how they liked their process. But he did not like what happened Thursday.
“The last one, it was not how we wanted to go about it,” Mateychuk said. “But I think those first three games (if you don’t count Minnesota), we had our chances and we were doing the right things. We were creating the right opportunities turning pucks over in their end. With that approach to the game, you’re going to score.”
Mateychuk will get a chance to play with Zach Werenski to open the game on Saturday after playing with him at times in rotation during the first four games. That means Dante Fabbro will play with Jake Christiansen on the third pair.
“I think I’ve been playing well. I feel like I’ve been defending well and taking offensive opportunities that have been given,” Mateychuk said. “It’s a great opportunity to play with a player like Zach. You watch him from the bench and you see the things that he’s capable of. I’m going to take the opportunity and try to seize the moment.”
Side Dishes
- Jet Greaves will make his third start of the season Saturday night. He hasn’t won a game yet but has a 2.06 goals against and a .932 save percentage. He’s just had three goals of support thus far.
- Great stat shared by Jeff Svoboda. The Blue Jackets are fourth in the NHL in team save percentage (.925) despite having a 1-3-0 record. Both Greaves and Elvis Merzlikins have been good to start the new season.
- Expect the Lightning to start Jonas Johansson against the Blue Jackets. Andrei Vasilevskiy skated Saturday morning in Columbus with a small group of players after playing Friday in Detroit. We won’t know until warmups if Nikita Kucherov will play after missing Friday due to an illness.
- Expect these Blue Jackets lines.
- Dmitri Voronkov – Sean Monahan – Kirill Marchenko
- Boone Jenner – Adam Fantilli – Kent Johnson
- Cole Sillinger – Charlie Coyle – Mathieu Olivier
- Zach Aston Reese – Isac Lundestrom – Yegor Chinakhov
- Zach Werenski – Denton Mateychuk
- Ivan Provorov – Damon Severson
- Jake Christiansen – Dante Fabbro
- Jet Greaves (starter)/Elvis Merzlikins (backup)
