It doesn’t get much bigger than Saturday night at Nationwide Arena.
The winner of the game between the New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets will own the second wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference. The loser will be on the outside looking in.
The Blue Jackets have been reeling of late. They’re coming off being shutout at home by the Vegas Golden Knights 4-0. The team felt they started well. But after being down 2-0 after the first, they couldn’t get things going in the final 40 minutes.
The Blue Jackets in six March games have allowed 24 goals, an average of 4.00 per game. If they hope to break through in their biggest game to date of the season, they’re going to have to solidify their defense.
Aston-Reese Conversation
We caught up with Zach Aston-Reese on Friday. He has been on some championship teams and has experience going through the rigors of a playoff race.
In his mind, the team is still in a very good place. The reason for that is the leadership in helping turn things around.
“I think that started today with good leadership,” Aston-Reese said. “A lot of the guys that have been here for a while spoke to the team before practice. Just try to make sure we’re all getting on the same page. With 17 games left, not a lot of room for error. It’s a really tight race. Ottawa came out of nowhere and took over a spot. We put ourselves in a really good position where I think we were four points back going head-to-head against New Jersey. That was an important game for us. We didn’t get the result. But moving forward, I think it’s one game at a time and it’s every play matters. It’s a playoff mindset.”
“So I think it’s a good lesson for us and almost better to fail a little bit, get everyone on the same page, get in the playoff mindset. That way when playoffs comes around, you’re prepared for the craziness of it all.”
The Blue Jackets have had their chances. They started the second period strong in New Jersey after a tough start. They dominated the first period but were unable to score. Aston-Reese believes it’s just a simple matter of execution needing to be better.
“I think it’s just execution, honestly. Look at all our chances (Thursday.) Even for myself and I’m not throwing a pity party by any means, but a couple chances to set up goals or score myself and I don’t. And I’m minus-1 at the end of the night. So it’s easier to feel bad for myself but at the end of the day, we have to execute and have to score at some point. I thought we played really good hockey Thursday. It’s sometimes we have those one or two plays where we’re trying to force it through the middle or our F3 is on the wrong side and not there defensively and we give up a grade A that bites us. Those can’t happen moving forward because every little mistake is magnified.”
Aston-Reese also talked about the importance of shifts after the Blue Jackets’ power play. It has not produced of late. But they can still control momentum even if they don’t score. It’s up to the players on the bench after the man advantage has expired.
“It’s usually the bottom-six line going out against their top-six line. I’m always in that mindset. I’m not going to let these guys score. It is a huge momentum swing especially if you don’t get a goal. It’s always a tougher matchup going up against the team’s best line. It’s something that I’m definitely aware of and take pride in.”
Aston-Reese is expected to play on a line with Justin Danforth and Mathieu Olivier on Saturday night.
Chinakhov is Back
After sitting for one game as a healthy scratch, Yegor Chinakhov will return to the Blue Jackets’ lineup Saturday. Head coach Dean Evason wants one big thing from Chinakhov in his game.
“Just to get inside,” Evason said. Again, he hadn’t played for a long time. So to take a little break and then come back ready again. We’ve spoken to him personally and what we need to see from him to help his team have success here tonight and the biggest thing is just getting to the inside. He has a skill set in all areas of the game to help us and we expect him to do that here tonight.”
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Chinakhov admitted coming back after a long layoff was hard for him.
“The first couple games was really tough because it was the first games in three months,” Chinakhov said. “I just want to play my game. I want to prove (being over the injury.)”
Chinakhov is expected to skate in the top-six with Boone Jenner and Kent Johnson on Saturday night.
Side Dishes
- Got to spend a couple minutes with Alex Faust, who is currently one of the voices of the New York Rangers on the radio. He also does select national games on TNT. He will have the call of some upcoming playoff games on TNT. We asked him to share the national perspective on what the Blue Jackets are doing.
- “They seem to have really rallied around one another in a difficult situation,” Faust said. “It’s actually really inspiring to watch from afar not only to see the team come together but the city come together and rally around them in a difficult situation.”
- Faust shared a great Johnny Gaudreau story from back in college. “I do remember when I was in college at Northeastern and Northeastern had recruited him. He wound up going to Boston College and just terrorized us in every big game imaginable. Regular season, Beanpot, he was just such a dynamic, video-game like skill on display. It was incredible to watch and incredible to see how quickly he was able to jump into the league when a lot of people may have doubted him because of his size. And to see the impact he’s had off the ice has been remarkable watching from afar. It’s been nice to see the hockey world has rallied around them.”
- Faust on Zach Werenski: “Werenski made a statement at the 4-Nations. I think around the league, he’s been such a respected defenseman for a long period of time the way he’s able to drive the play. For sure he has elevated his game this season.”
- Daniil Tarasov will start his third game of the season against the Rangers on Saturday. He’s only allowed three goals excluding the shootout against them in the first two games. Igor Shesterkin will start for the Rangers.
- With Jake Christiansen out due to an upper-body injury, Jack Johnson will enter the lineup in his place.
- One last thing for today. Thursday against Vegas, head coach Bruce Cassidy was asked about the status of both Brett Howden and Ivan Barbashev who each missed Tuesday’s game in Pittsburgh for personal reasons. Cassidy said on record they were both in. But then when the team shared the coach’s availability, they scrubbed that specific question out. It made me wonder if this was common around the league. In talking to several folks, it’s more common than we think. Turns out some teams are very protective about what they share. This one was just weird given that it was said on record and shared. Personally, I’m not sure what the benefit of not being transparent is in a situation like that. Apparently, the Golden Knights are not the only ones who do this. Let’s hope that we someday get to a place of uniform transparency across the league. That time doesn’t appear to be coming anytime soon.