One Team Came to Win, Another Came to Play

Tonight the Vancouver Canucks outplayed the Blue Jackets in a game of meh.  I think Vancouver had lost something like 3 games in a row, and were going to be fairly desperate to reverse that on a long road trip.  The Jackets play 2 games against Vancouver, won one already, and sweeping this series just isn't a big motivator.  The schedule has set the Jackets up to go to war in the Metropolitan Division and in the Eastern Conference down the stretch.  That is their focus.  With a middling Pacific Division Team for an opponent, the Jackets seemed to have a hard time getting their juices flowing.

So it goes.  Make no mistake that Vancouver deserved the win.  I felt they got the bounces, but I also felt that they earned the bounces with their effort.  The Jackets simply did not win many puck battles tonight. So they got ignominiously shut out by a team they probably should beat.  If they bring the same so-so effort to the game Saturday night against Detroit they will get spanked, and it will be time to start getting worried.  If they decide to take exception to the unpunished head shot to Josh Anderson, and come to play, they will be fine, and it will be a really fun game to watch.  Even if they lose, they will be able to say they came to play.  A phrase they cannot really use about tonight's effort.

I have felt that I wanted to see the Jackets stand pat at the trade deadline, and get their change from below, from the AHL.  After tonight, I'm not so sure.  Oliver Bjorkstrand is up from Cleveland.  There are a number of players I think he could have subbed in for and done a better job.  Gagne really stands out to me.  He didn't particularly have a bad game tonight, or one that would stand out as bad, but he has become invisible.  The secondary scoring has dried up.  It costs you nothing to dump Bjorkstrand in at right wing on that 4th line and see what happens.  Hartnell seemed like one of the few players that had it going tonight.  It would be nice to go all Bjork on Detroit.  Just saying.

The Jackets were co-conspirators in tonight's win by Vancouver.  The team that worked hardest won the game.  I'm not saying the Jackets didn't try.  I think they did.  Vancouver tried harder, and got the result they deserved.  They earned the bounces they got.  The line is so fine in the NHL right now.

Query?  Would you dump Jerome Iginla on that fourth line in place of Gagne?  What about a rental defenseman at the deadline?  Some of these things are coming into focus for the Jackets.  Tonight's unsatisfactory result helps to give you clarity.

Overall my take on tonight's game?  That's hockey.  No one goes undefeated in an NHL season.  Every team loses some games.   As long as we finish in that 2 or 3 slot in the Metro, its war with the Penguins in the playoffs.  To me, that's as it should be, and we have to go through the Penguins to get anywhere anyway, so you might as well start out there.  Does the outcome of tonight's game affect that.  No.  But you sure want to go into a series like that playing good hockey.  It would be hard to describe tonight's game by the Blue Jackets in that fashion.

GO JACKETS!!
GO MONSTERS!!