Blue Jackets Must Question Everything On Ice to End Slump

“It’s just stuff we need to figure out right now. Stuff we should have figured out weeks ago.”

Those were the words of an upset Charlie Coyle on Tuesday night after the Columbus Blue Jackets suffered another embarrassing loss in front of their home fans. When the final buzzer went off after their 6-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, chants of “Go Leafs Go” were echoing all over Nationwide Arena.

This marked the second Tuesday in a row that the Blue Jackets hosted a team playing the second half of back-to-back games that had to travel to get to Columbus. Both the Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers blew the home team out of the water by four goals.

What’s worse for the Blue Jackets was not only should they have been the fresher team, they had no answers when their opposition made pushes in the second period. The pattern was the same.

The Blue Jackets played good enough in the first period to either lead or be tied. Next thing they knew, they found themselves in position where they had zero chance of recovery. Zero.

The Blue Jackets started the second period Tuesday against the Maple Leafs with the remnants of a power play. When William Nylander ultimately scored at 2:26 to make 2-1, the game already felt over. There was no response. There was no pushback.

Yes, Zach Werenski was seen yelling at his teammates after a shorthanded goal by Easton Cowan made it 4-1 Maple Leafs. Yes, Erik Gudbranson fought Zack MacEwen late in the second period in an effort to wake up his team. By then, it was way too late to rescue Tuesday night’s game.

Coyle is right. The Blue Jackets’ ongoing issues should have been figured out weeks ago. Instead, they now have to sit on this one for another three days before having to take on the Vegas Golden Knights, the best team in the West as of Wednesday morning.

There is plenty of season to go. 76 games to be exact. But the time is now for the Blue Jackets to start questioning everything on the ice. Nothing can be spared.

They haven’t earned the right for anything to be spared.

Ongoing Issues

Here’s coach Rick Bowness postgame.

“I didn’t see that coming. We had good meetings today and thought we were ready to go.”

There’s problem number one. The head coach did not see Tuesday night coming. Coaches are supposed to have the pulse of the team. Bowness not seeing this coming when it’s been in their game at points this season is a concern.

But this gets worse. The second problem is that the Blue Jackets had every reason to be emotionally invested in Tuesday night. Kirill Marchenko was back in town. Jack Roslovic was back in town. They had every reason to play for Matthew Knies.

So what happened? Marchenko scored a goal. Roslovic added a goal and two assists. The former Blue Jackets got the last laugh. You could see how much Tuesday night meant to them.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jackets couldn’t meet the moment, again. They were supposed to be rested and emotionally charged. The Maple Leafs did what they wanted in the key moments of the game and skated circles around the Blue Jackets.

Here’s Adam Fantilli postgame.

“They’re on a back-to-back. We’ve been waiting for them. We got to have it whatever that looks like. The intensity, our game, getting on top of them. There’s absolutely zero excuses. They flew here last night. We got to be the fresher team and have our legs and be the better team. And we just weren’t.”

There it is. There’s absolutely zero excuses. Everything was setup for the Blue Jackets to get an important win to stabilize things. Instead, they’ll have two practices and three days to consider where they’re truly at.

The Blue Jackets got six power plays against the Maple Leafs. They got zero goals to show for it. Here’s Bowness on that aspect.

“You have six power plays and you don’t score a goal & your top-end guys don’t get a point. Okay, then we better look at what we’re doing & who we’re putting out there in those situations. We’re going to have to change that up. We’re changing that power play up.”

Change is coming. That better not be the only change the Blue Jackets make.

Question Everything

Top-to-bottom, every Blue Jacket has so much more to give. Everyone should be on high alert as to where the team is at.

Bowness has been as patient as possible giving guys time to develop chemistry and figure themselves out. But a pair of embarrassing home losses says things cannot stay the same. Everything on the ice must be questioned.

That begins with the lines. The Blue Jackets have scored just 19 goals this season, an average of 2.38 per game. That’s fourth worst in the NHL. Take out the six they got on opening night against the Buffalo Sabres, it’s 13 goals in the other seven games, less than two goals per game.

Couple that with the Blue Jackets allowing 3.63 goals per game. That’s the eighth-worst in the NHL. They cannot be patient anymore. Being last place in points in the Eastern Conference mandates everything being questioned deployment wise.

The Blue Jackets are also in LTIR, meaning over $104 million in cap is currently accounted for. PuckPedia shows them at $105 million as of Wednesday. They’re an over the cap team in last place by points. Can’t happen.

Consider this. Valeri Nichushkin ($6.125 million), Conor Garland ($6 million), Sean Monahan ($5.5 million) and Dmitri Voronkov ($4.175 million) have a combined cap hit of $21.8 million. Their offensive output so far this season? Two goals, one each for Nichushkin and Monahan. Seven assists. Garland has no points in eight games and is on a 16-game pointless streak along with one point in his last 21 games.

It doesn’t matter what metric we’re reviewing. All mandate a full review of the Blue Jackets’ approach. This is the kind of start that gets teams eliminated in October before the season gets into full swing.

Lines need to be put into a blender. Power-play deployment needs a serious makeover. The careless penalties need to stop. We can go on and on about every single issue these Blue Jackets are facing.

But if the start of this season isn’t a wake up call for them, then the questions need to expand to off the ice too. Yes, they’re not a full health. Yes, there are new players and adjustments. But this is the NHL. As Fantilli said before, there are no excuses. Especially when it comes to having no pushback against teams. Being injured and trying to adjust doesn’t excuse a lack of effort or buy in.

No stone can be left unturned. Not now. Many of the issues are fixable. But they’re only fixable if everyone is on the same page and fully bought in. Perhaps we need to question if everyone is on the same page? Tuesday’s game opens the door for that to be a fair question.

Question everything. Anything short of that approach is completely unacceptable. The standings mandate a full-scale review from top-to-bottom.