Welcome back to Blue Jackets News & Rumors, on a Tuesday. With Monday night’s game in Florida, this week’s edition was pushed back a day.
As usual, we have a lot to discuss in this space. We will begin this week looking back at the game in Florida and just how much a missed opportunity it was for the Blue Jackets.
Roller Coaster Monday
If you were late for the game, you may have missed out on quite the start by the Panthers. Before the game was seven minutes old, Elvis Merzlikins was chased and the Blue Jackets found themselves down 3-0.
The Panthers lost their previous game to the Chicago Blackhawks so it was expected they’d make an early push. But this was something no one on the Blue Jackets thought would happen at the start.
At one point in the first, the score was 3-0 and the shots on goal were 20-1 in favor of the Panthers. This led to some Blue Jackets fans deciding to find something else to do.
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But in hockey, games are 60 minutes or longer. The Blue Jackets eventually found themselves and made quite a game out of it.
Thanks to goals by Sean Kuraly, Boone Jenner and Kirill Marchenko, that 3-0 early hole was completely erased. Kuraly’s line in particular with Justin Danforth and Mathieu Olivier was the best line of the night for the Blue Jackets. On a night where the Panthers dominated possession, that line had the better of possession when on the ice.
Another player who stood out was defenseman Erik Gudbranson. Not only did he finish with two assists on the night, he was the Blue Jackets’ best player on the ice. He made good decisions. He was in the right place. He made some plays. For all the criticism he gets for his contract, he’s been really good this season. He’s starting to show why he’s one of the team captains.
Eventually the Blue Jackets took the lead 4-3 thanks to Alexandre Texier’s first goal of the season. He was in the right place at the right time to bury the rebound. But now the real test was about to come. Could these Blue Jackets hold off the Panthers’ late charge?
Although the Blue Jackets hung in there, a costly turnover by Ivan Provorov ended up in the back of the net. Nick Cousins converted it and it was 4-4. Spencer Martin had stopped the first 34 shots he saw before that goal.
The good news? After being down 3-0, the Blue Jackets were getting to overtime. The bad news? They got to overtime. They held the lead with under a minute left in regulation.
Carter Verhaeghe scored in overtime to give the Panthers a 5-4 win and the second point while teaching the Blue Jackets about the importance of late-game play. They made the comeback but it went up in smoke thanks to one mistake. As Pascal Vincent said postgame, that was the disappointing part of it.
If the Blue Jackets want to get to management’s goal of making the playoffs this season, they can’t afford to lose points like that. They must learn how to play late in games and how to properly defend a lead.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice pulled Sergei Bobrovsky early and held the puck virtually the entire time before the Cousins goal. While the Blue Jackets hung in there, the pressure was too much to overcome. They have to find a way to be more aggressive in these situations.
The overtime point gives the Blue Jackets a 4-5-3 record on the season. A win Thursday would put them back to hockey .500. While that’s not the goal, it would prove to be an important win for a team still trying to get everyone connected at the same time.
Where’s Johnny?
The Blue Jackets as we mentioned now have a record of 4-5-3 in their first 12 games this season. Those 11 standing’s points is even more impressive when you consider the start that Johnny Gaudreau has had this season.
Gaudreau sits tied for seventh on the Blue Jackets in scoring with five points. His only goal of the season came against the Tampa Bay Lightning as an empty netter. Two of his four assists came in one game.
Take those two games away and Gaudreau has just two assists in the other 10 games. What is going on here?
Coach Vincent even went as far as saying he didn’t like Gaudreau’s game Saturday night in Washington. For the final 16+ minutes of the game, Gaudreau didn’t play. Without Patrik Laine in the lineup, Gaudreau is the Blue Jackets’ biggest offensive threat. Yet he is not producing like he should.
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In watching the tape of a few games throughout this season, there are two major themes that have stuck out. First, Gaudreau has been open but the puck never reached him. While he is more known as a playmaker, he knows how to get open. Had the Blue Jackets been able to get the puck to him, there would have been prime scoring chances. Instead, the plays were broken up and going the other way. One wonders if there will be some line shuffling in an effort to get him going while Laine is working his way back.
Second, it does appear Gaudreau is trying to force plays. Especially on the power play, he’s tried shooting more knowing he’s looking to spark something. Vincent has said overall he doesn’t want his players to cheat the game. When the offense is struggling and when a player like Gaudreau is struggling, it’s natural to want to do something about it in the moment. The challenge here is to stick with the process and let things come naturally.
Gaudreau is too good a player to go this long without consistently hitting the scoresheet. He knows he needs to be better. The Blue Jackets will win more games when he’s doing his job creating offense. To be 4-5-3 with this kind of production is actually surprising in a good way. That could point to better days ahead assuming he finds his game in short order.
Side Dishes
- Martin’s save percentage is now .928 since being claimed off of waivers. How the Blue Jackets decide to proceed on the goaltending will be a major developing story as we get closer to Daniil Tarasov’s return.
- Monday was not on Elvis Merzlikins. The team was caved in early by a Panthers team that is known to do that to many teams in the NHL.
- Andrew Peeke returned to the lineup Monday near his hometown of Parkland, Florida. He played 16:30 and recorded an assist on Texier’s 4-3 goal. Peeke replaced David Jiricek for this game. Vincent said Jiricek didn’t deserve to sit out. Would think Jiricek gets back in sooner rather than later given his early performance. This will be an ongoing story to watch while the Blue Jackets have eight defensemen on the roster.
- Speaking of logjams, still nothing imminent about potential moves to unclog that jam. The Blue Jackets have tried. But until they get a reasonable deal, they’ll keep looking. Now one must wonder if the goaltending situation will be solved via trade rather than waivers…?
- The Blue Jackets now have Tuesday off after coming home from south Florida. They will practice Wednesday in advance of their game Thursday against the Dallas Stars. The game is an ESPN+/Hulu exclusive with John Buccigross calling the action.
