Welcome back to Columbus Blue Jackets News & Rumors. Every Monday or thereabouts, we talk about news from around the team from the past week and offer our take on it and what to expect moving forward. Can you believe it’s the end of October already?
As usual, we have a lot to discuss. The Blue Jackets enter the new week with a 3-3-2 record overall. New York Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov pitched his fourth career shutout against the Blue Jackets in his career on Saturday night. That’s where we begin this week.
Where Have All the Goals Gone?
Without looking, do you remember who scored the last Blue Jackets goal? It’s been a little bit, hasn’t it? Emil Bemstrom scored a power-play goal to give them a 3-1 lead in Montreal on Thursday night.
Since that goal, the Blue Jackets have gone 90:43 game time without scoring a goal. That’s not to say they haven’t had chances to score. But in the end, they have a big fat zero in the goal column.
This requires a further examination up and done the lineup. The old hockey cliche is teams need their top guys producing on a consistent basis. While some Blue Jackets are off to great starts, others are off to career-worst starts. Let’s look at a few examples.
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Perhaps the biggest example is Johnny Gaudreau. While he has set some goals up, he has yet to score in 2023-24. He has never gone eight games into a season without scoring a goal in his career.
Gaudreau is looking at this from a more upbeat perspective.
“We’re in a better spot as a team right now than last season,” Gaudreau said postgame. “So I’d say personally, I’d rather be in this position. We’re getting looks. We’re getting chances. It’s not going in right now. Matter of time, you go through these things at some point in the season. Just happens to be right now.”
Gaudreau isn’t the only one off to a slow offensive start for the Blue Jackets. Here are some others who haven’t hit the scoresheet in a way they would like so far.
- Alex Texier: 0-0-0 in eight games.
- Cole Sillinger: No goals and two points in eight games.
- Kirill Marchenko: No goals in seven games. He was a healthy scratch Saturday. He scored 21 in his rookie season last year.
“I don’t know if it’s one specific thing, one missing ingredient. We had a lot of chances tonight,” Sillinger said. “I think we could hit the net a little more and we’ll make him make saves. (The Islanders) played really well tonight. We just have to find ways to capitalize when we have our chances.”
Coach Pascal Vincent believes part of the reason Saturday outside of Varlamov’s performance was some of the shot selection the Blue Jackets took.
“We had our chances, a few posts. But our shot selection wasn’t the best I thought,” Vincent said. “I think we’re shooting from bad angles at times we want to create some O-zone (time.) We want to have a shooting mindset. But obviously it’s early in the season. Lots of things we can improve defensively, but also offensively our decision-making against a real good team that can defend, veteran team, they’re heavy. There’s ways to beat that. I thought we didn’t select the right plays offensively. Makes the goalie look good. But he played very well.”
The Blue Jackets have been in virtually every game all season with the exception of the Red Wings game they lost 4-0. They were only able to score twice against the Ducks before losing in overtime. While they scored three early, they couldn’t add any more in Montreal before losing in overtime. Then they couldn’t get any on Saturday against the Islanders.
“We all want to score. We all get these chances. We want to cash in no matter who you are in this room right now and put ’em in,” Boone Jenner said. “It’s focusing on the little things, making it harder on the goalie. Just little things like that and the rest will fall into place. Right now we just want to square it down but have a focus on making it harder on the other team.”
It’s certainly not time to panic here. There’s a lot of things the Blue Jackets are doing that are noticeably better. But in the end, it’s about results and finding ways to score. The team isn’t doing that right now. Expect to continue seeing lineup adjustments and possibly some tweaks to some line combinations in order to find something to get the offense going. They have to take advantage of games where their goalie gives them a great performance.
Martin Gaining Trust
Spencer Martin got the start Saturday night and was fantastic most of the night. He stopped 31/33 shots. The two he allowed he wished he could have back. Both were rebounds allowed.
In Martin’s three starts, he has just one win. But his numbers are noticeable. He has a .922 save percentage in that small sample size. The issue is the Blue Jackets have scored just three goals total in his three starts with two of them being opposing shutouts.
“It’s a tough feeling when you feel good about your game,” Martin said. “But then at the same time, you make mistakes that cause goals against and at the other end, the goalie is playing really well too. So there’s both good and bad to take from that.”
What’s been really noticeable about Martin is the confidence he’s playing with. He kept the Blue Jackets in the game Saturday with a few great saves to keep it 1-0. He was named the game’s second star in a 2-0 loss.
“I came in confident. I have confidence in my game for sure but I want to convert them to wins. It’s kind of like I’m not gonna get too low. I’m not gonna get too high and just focus on timing, my performance and then passion that we can get wins.
Coach Vincent says that Martin is building trust with them with each performance.
“He’s building that trust with us. It’s unfortunate, the second goal. But he’s good at playing the puck. And I’ve seen it at past with goalies that can play the puck really well. Sometimes they try a play so that’s a learning curve for him. But he’s building that trust in practices, working habits and the way he plays. He’s a good goalie and we’re not afraid to put him in the net.”
Even in a goal against, Vincent liked Martin’s mindset on what he was trying to do even though it resulted in the Islanders’ second goal on Saturday.
“I like it. No I don’t like it but I like the mindset. Three minutes left. Big balls to make that play. And lots of guts. And he wants to be a difference maker. So we don’t want to take that (playing the puck) away from Spencer because he’s really good at it. And I think he can help us spend less time in the D-zone, so I don’t want to take that away from him but he’s earning our trust big time.”
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Where this will get interesting is when Daniil Tarasov is ready. This past week, John Davidson appeared on 97.1’s Rothman and Ice and said that Tarasov is “2-3 weeks away.” While there’s still time to sort through some things, eventually the Blue Jackets are going to have to decide what to do in net.
Can Martin find a way to stay on even when Tarasov is ready? If he continues to play like this giving his team a chance to win every night, we can’t rule out the possibility of them at least thinking about it.
Tarasov likely gets a rehab assignment when he’s ready to play. That doesn’t require waivers. That gives them time to see how he’s doing before having to make a decision. Vincent said on Sunday that management along with him will make that call.
“Nick Backstrom saw a potential in him when he was watching tapes before we got him. And he liked him a lot,” Vincent said. “He sees a lot of potential in this guy. So I don’t know where it’s gonna go. This is the kind of situation I think that sometimes a door opens for somebody and takes advantage of it and timing is everything. So right now he’s taking advantage of his opportunity.”
The most expected outcome is Martin ends up back on waivers. That would give teams including the Vancouver Canucks a chance to claim him. But what if the Blue Jackets like him enough that he becomes part of the future? Would they consider carrying three goalies? That’s tough given the logjam already on the roster. If they don’t carry three, someone has to be waived.
If nothing else, Martin is showcasing he still has plenty of game. Whether it’s with the Blue Jackets or a another team will be sorted out in the coming weeks.
Side Dishes
- Vincent said the Blue Jackets in the third period Saturday “were the real Blue Jackets.” I asked him to clarify what he meant by that. “It’s more what I’m looking for the pace of the game and how quick we defended, how quick we got the puck back, how quick we were creating offense, just that fast pace within our structure. That’s what I meant. It’s the pace on both sides of the puck.”
- Vincent went on to say his team was thinking more during the first period Saturday. “Right now, they’re still thinking a little bit. We made some adjustments in the first period and I could see part of the reason we were a little bit slower. It’s because we were thinking about, where’s my route? But we’re gonna get to a point where they understand those little adjustments and they won’t be thinking. It’s gonna be part of what we do.”
- Vincent also says pace applies to not only skating but how quick they make decisions to track or sort out on the tracking on defending coverages while creating offense.
- Patrik Laine update: Vincent said he’s feeling better everyday. However he hasn’t started skating yet and the head coach isn’t sure when that will be. “I’d say it’s week-to-week right now.”
- Erik Gudbranson missed practice Sunday. Vincent said it was a maintenance day for him but he is questionable for Monday’s game in Dallas. He blocked a shot that seemed to sting him on Saturday night. When asked if it was related to that shot block, Vincent said yes. It was Andrew Peeke who skated with Jake Bean in drills at practice with Adam Boqvist taking turns with Damon Severson beside Zach Werenski.
- There was a slight change to the forward lines at Sunday’s practice. Dmitri Voronkov skated with Cole Sillinger and Kent Johnson while Justin Danforth skated with Sean Kuraly and Mathieu Olivier. The top-six remained unchanged. Marchenko took turns on the fourth line.
- Finally, Vincent had some strong words about neck and ear guards after learning what happened with Adam Johnson. His main message? “What is the cost?”
