Gallos' Thoughts on Game 27: Boston

Tonight the Blue Jackets lost to the Boston Bruins 3-1 in their final game of the season against the reigning Eastern Conference champs.  The Bruins came out, and exerted their will in the first period, and bounced and deflected two goals past Curtis McElhinney.  That was enough for Boston, who won their 11th consecutive home game.

The undermanned CBJ came back out in the second period with a bit more jump in their step, but kept taking penalties that interfered with any chance of setting up a consistent offensive cycle.  Dalton Prout dropped the gloves with Lucic in the second period, and came out with at least a draw.  Good to see him stepping up, and trying to get the team rolling.

Late in the period, Seidenburg went shoulder to the head on Nick Foligno.  We'll see if it gets reviewed by Shanny.  Nick took exception, and went after him, drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct and a 10 minute misconduct, so the period was ended with the CBJ on the penalty kill and no scoring in the period.

Early in the third period, CMac got victimized by a slap shot from Lucic that hit Jack Johnson's skate, went up in the air, and floated over CMac's head and into the goal.  Whaddaya gonna do?  Then Dougie Hamilton tripped Ryan Johansen, and on the ensuing power play, Joey scored on a nasty little wrist shot for his team leading 10th goal of the year.

I don't see this as a roller coaster game.  The CBJ brought reasonable energy to the game, but they are just not at the same level as the Bruins.  The Bruins had no players out with injury.  The CBJ have significant injuries, not that a healthy roster would have brought them to that level.  The better team won tonight.

I think in the last Bruins game I commented that I thought Ryan Murray found the game pretty 'rich', or in other words, a difficult game.  I felt he definitely moved past that in this game, and had a pretty solid outing.  The Bruins field a lineup with a number of veterans who play the same type of game as Boone Jenner.  That made it a learning environment for the young forward.  He didn't play too bad, but it was an educational experience.    Our young guys continue to learn and develop, so that's a positive from this game.

In terms of the series, Boston takes it.  This really puts us in a hole that we need to make up somewhere else across the schedule if we want to make the playoffs.  We're in the hole with the Penguins and the Caps too, which complicates things.  So this loss hurts, but I don't think it's shocking that we couldn't handle Boston.  No wailing or gnashing of teeth.  Time to move on.

Game Haiku:

Jackets play Bruins

A bounce, a tip, an air ball

Is all Boston needs

Next up, the Stamko-less 'Bolts at Nationwide on Tuesday.

GO JACKETS!!

See How This Works People? Game 26: Oilers

Tonight the Columbus Blue Jackets cancelled out a horrific loss on the last road trip by prevailing against the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 in regulation.  This would be a 3 point game in the KHL.  Just saying.  If you read my previous post <yawn> you would know that's how this year operates.  It doesn't really matter how bad you are on the road, so long as you cancel them out at home.  Now, this game does not completely cancel out our 7-0 loss on the road to Edmonton.  The difference could mean home ice advantage in any Stanley Cup final between the two teams this year.  However, for the moment I feel I can let go of that concern, and concentrate on wins and losses.  We won one, they won one.  Split.  .500 winning percentage in this series.  Cross it off the list, move on.

Of bigger concern is the game against the Bruins tomorrow, in Boston. We are upside down in that series, and need a road win badly for damage control purposes.  This isn't a trap game, should be no problem getting up for the Bruins.  However, they are a formidable team.  That f*****g Lucic is a load, especially in the last couple of minutes of a game.  (Note to Grandma: f*****g stand for farthing, a small British monetary denomination.  It means I don't give a brass farthing about that f*****g Lucic, but he keeps beating us!)  In terms of accomplishment for our young team, it would be a significant accomplishment if they could pull off a road win against Boston.  If they can't, so be it.  Everyone else gets to try as well.  But a win would help to cancel the negatives of 2 losses against the Bruins so far.  So it's  really important game.

Joey.  Ahhh, Joey.  Nice game buddy.  Ryan Johansen's first goal was a beauty.  He found some space in the hard areas, looked around and thought 'nobody's checking me', took his time and roofed a beauty.  A water bottle buster, from the edge of the crease.  No chance for Bryzgolov, and the goal broke his shut out streak.  Damn I'm glad we don't have to play Edmonton any more.  With some goal tending, they could be formidable at some point later in this season.  It should be fun to watch from afar. <fist pump>  I love the Eastern Conference.

Taking the lead to the second period on Johansen's snipe, Edmonton got frustrated with the herky-jerky nature of the Blue Jackets game (remember what happened when we tried to skate with them?), and started taking penalties.  Power play goals by Anisimov and Foligno helped break the game open, and Skille got loose for a beauty of a snipe to complete the second period scoring.

The Jackets ended up giving up 2 goals in the third period defending the lead.  Nashville, we are not.  But the last few minutes was spent with the CBJ buzzing around an empty net, but no empty net goal was produced.

Nice crowd tonight, though quiet.  A rookie crowd, with lots of kids.  We need to do better, but there's this roller coaster thing....

Anyway, Johansen, Jenner and Murry played relatively well, in spite of a rookie mistake by the latter on the power play.  But no harm, no foul.  A good team win, with the whole team winning battles all night long.  Good stuff.

Game haiku:

Edmonton rolls in

but a CBJ hockey night

Jackets even score

A fun night of hockey in Columbus tonight.  Met some fun Oilers fan.  Made a date for a cup final in three years.  Hmmm....

GO JACKETS!!

Interpreting Results in the 2013-14 Season

First and foremost, we here at the Dark Blue Jacket would like to wish you and yours a great Thanksgiving Holiday season.  We appreciate your readership as we walk down the road through another NHL hockey season with our beloved CBJ.

Like family, we reserve the right to criticize our team when we feel they don't meet our expectations.  And, these last few games have provided plenty of fodder for criticism, as well as some profoundly satisfying moments.  In the previous post, the Dark Blue Jacket raised some issues related to the relative stability at the coaching position at this juncture, which brought fast and thoughtful response from some of our readers.  Good stuff folks, thank you!

What I wanted to do tonight was to share with you some thoughts I have had about how this season is turning out.  With a team that is likely to be a bubble team in the NHL, we need to ensure that we are at least a .500 team, and then try to make a few runs that will put us into a playoff position.  This remains doable for this team.  The 2013-14 season was always going to be about surviving the first half of the season to see what would happen with the addition of Nathan Horton.  So far we are hanging in there at this task, benefiting from below par play from our fellow Metro Division opponents.  This won't last, but it has served to keep us in touch with a play off spot.

You see, one thing about this year, is that we play a home and away with all the western conference teams.  If you split all of those home and away games, you have a solid foundation for a .500 season.  Win a few of them, and you do your self some favors.  Lose a few of them, and you dig yourself some holes.

Earlier this year, the CBJ went 4-5 in a 9 game home stand.  Not so good.  But then they went on the road, and actually finished up 3-2, before losing to Nashville last night.  So what did they accomplish?  Well the CBJ lost disappointing games to Ottawa and Calgary at home already this year.  On the road trip, we canceled out those home losses with road wins.  We are .500 on those games.  Also on the road trip, we lost a pretty brutal game to Vancouver.  But low and behold we had already beat them at home.  Vancouver cancelled out.  We did lay another beating on Toronto, so we are ahead in that series.  Pittsburgh, not so much, but the two series cancel out.  We are behind the 8 ball with Boston, but we are up on the Islanders.  Likewise we are down with the Capitals, which puts us in a hole.  We have more games against them that we cannot afford to lose.
So we have laid some ground work we need to make up to cancel out other losses in this early season.  Edmonton comes to town tomorrow.  Obviously, we badly need to cancel out the egg we laid up there.  We now have to win a road game against Nashville later in the season to cancel last night's loss.  But viewing the season as a whole, the CBJ have managed to stay even on a lot of fronts, in spite of injuries and a lot of subpar play.

It is quite possible that this is all going to fall apart going forward.  I don't think it is a reasonable expectation that the rest of the Metro will continue to play the way they have.  I think you can look for a Division wide elevation of play.  The CBJ are going to have to match that in order to hang with the pack.

The situation is less than ideal, but so is the news on the injury front.  So long as the CBJ can maintain their manic pace, and balance the curb stompings (DBJ's term) with the eggs they lay, they will hang in there.  Then at some point in the season they will need to make a move.  But they are staying close enough for that to remain possible, and that is all we need to get out of this early season.  The youth are learning valuable lessons.  Hopefully they can use those lessons going forward.

GO JACKETS!!

So DBJ hijacked the recap for CBJ Game 25 to talk about matters

Nashville 4 - Columbus 0

The Columbus Blue Jackets lost on home ice to the Nashville Predators, 4-0.  The Preds scored at 9:58 of the 1st period and - in classic Nashville style - ran the clock out on the CBJ for the balance of the game.

Bless your heart, Barry Trotz.  Only you could sit on a lead for 50 minutes of game play and get away with it.

Here's the game haiku:

Trotz' Rule to Live By

CBJ can't score a goal

All Preds need is one

OK, that's out of the way.  Now let's talk about things of substance.

CBJ Luck

On the evening when:

- The NHL TV rights in Canada dramatically shifted, leaving former stalwart TSN out in the cold and MAKING DOUG MACLEAN ONE OF THE MOST VISIBLE ANALYSTS IN THE SPORT in a $5+ billion, 12-year deal that effectively gives Rogers SportsNet control of NHL television programming across Canada, and

- 10 former NHL players brought a potentially devastating suit against the NHL over the long-simmering concussion/head trauma issue and the league's obligations to its players....

...the Columbus Blue Jackets curb-stomped the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Center of the Hockey Universe.

Of course they did.  On a night when nobody of influence was paying attention to the actual games being played.

That, my friends, is the encapsulation of CBJ Luck, wrapped up with a bow in one evening.

Sigh.

Class action lawsuit over head trauma filed against the NHL by former players

I'm going to leave the opinionating out of this post due to time constraints and a need to better digest what popped right at the beginning of tonight's CBJ-Toronto game, but here's the skinny:  10 former NHL players have filed a class action lawsuit against the NHL in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.  They apparently allege the following:

Suit basically says NHL should have known about head trauma risks and acted long ago to inform and protect players.
— Nick Cotsonika (@cotsonika) November 25, 2013

The 47-page complaint is linked here in PDF form.

So DBJ can't quite believe what he saw in CBJ game 24: Toronto

Columbus 6 - Toronto 0

The Columbus Blue Jackets ended their five-game Canadian swing with a blast of old-fashioned, Columbus cannon-fire.  They took it to the host Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-0, at the Air Canada Centre in the Center of the Hockey Universe.

Tonight's recap is a little out of sorts because I'm pinch-hitting for one of my compadres.  I didn't sit and watch the game all that closely.  Instead, I did many of the regular fatherly chores - wash some dishes, put some of the kids to bed, switch out the laundry.  You know, the stuff you do when the game is on in the background and you occasionally look up to check what is going on.

I ended up looking up a lot tonight...and had absolutely no idea what was going on.

So DBJ watched portions of CBJ Game 23: Vancouver

Vancouver 6 - Columbus 2

The Columbus Blue Jackets' Western Death March Road Trip continued with the Vancouver Canucks pasting the Columbus Blue Jackets, 6-2, at Rogers Arena.

I fell asleep before the first intermission and awoke with about 10 minutes left in the third.  It was a 10PM start -- so shoot me.

Point is, the 'nucks apparently dropped three goals in really short order on the Blue Jackets in the second period, and the CBJ retreated to Their Happy Place.  It was over.

Your haiku:

Calvert's goal for naught

Nuckle-heads destroy poor Bob

Brick by Brick, baby!

Back in the Saddle, Game 22: Calgary

The boys deserve some cold ones tonight

Hee, hee.  Look what I found!  Thanks for the graphic DBJ!!  Shrugging off the annual debacle in Edmonton last night, the Columbus Blue Jackets came back to prevail over the Calgary Flames 2-1 in overtime.  This is a big win for the Jackets.  All four of the Jackets on the ice, Anisimov, Atkinson, Savard and Nikitin all got a crack at the winner, but after 3 or so blocks, Nikki 6 buried the game winner.

The CBJ played a very good first 40 minutes.  They took a lead in the first period off a nice shot by Nick Foligno.  The played a good all around game.  Calgary came out hard in the third period, and were able to connect on a stretch pass and score the tying goal.  I thought the Calgary pressure at that time might swing the game, but the Jackets hung in there, and slowly regained the upper hand in the game.  The Jackets controlled the last couple of minutes of the game, and really controlled the overtime, finally scoring the winner.

Columbus is 2-1 on the 3 road games so far on this trip.  Very acceptable.

Anisimov seemed more engaged tonight, moving up in the lineup to play for the injured Dubinsky.  Matt Calvert may return in the next game.  Love what I am seeing from Johansen.  Same from Murray.  Every time someone gets pressured it seems they throw a crappy pass at Murray, and low and behold, the puck gets settled, and a nice pass up the ice is the final result.  Nikitin had the best all round game he's had this year.  It was a good, workman-like, Jackets win.

On the second night of a back to back, I'm keeping my shift short.

Game Haiku:

Nikki 6 wins game

Good effort in Saddledome

On to Vancouver

GO JACKETS!!

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again, Game 21: Edmonton

Sorry Sir, we're out of ammo!

I love that old Yogi Berra quote.  I wondered if it was going to be one of 'those' Edmonton games this evening.  Yup.  Sure was.  The Jackets got waxed, losing 7-0 to a motivated Edmonton squad.  Same old sad song I've heard these many years.  I think the TV announcers said we were 5-19 in Edmonton over the years.  That means Brad Marchant and Trevor Letowski were losing these kind of games in Edmonton all these years.  Yeah, and Nasher too.  It's part of our history.

This is just the way it was last year.  A CBJ team that was rolling came into Edmonton, and Atkinson, Anisimov, and Calvert scored like 3 goals against Edmonton but we still lost by 3.  The next night we beat a floundering Calgary squad, and got rolling again.  This is what happens in this game, year after year.

Edmonton fans, congratulations.  Your boys had it tonight.  Way to break that 6 game home losing streak tonight.  Good luck on that going forward.  You see, we won't be coming back to help you resurrect this momentum later on this season, we're in the Eastern Conference now.  However, we'll see you boys in Nationwide Arena on November 29 to see if you can duplicate the feat of playing Oilers hockey.

Because we sure played Oilers hockey tonight.  And tonight, I'd say Edmonton is about 7 goals better than the Jackets at Oilers hockey over a 60 minute time frame.  At one point in the second period the teams were literally skating laps.  I thought it looked like an ice rink.  I hate to break it to you folks, but if we try to skate with Edmonton, we don't do it as good as they do.  Seventh (7th) goal is after Derek McKenzie, whom I love, tries to race Edmonton back up the ice.  He falls down because he loses this race (naturally), the puck goes the other way, and they score.  The Jackets players tried to play like they were as skilled as Edmonton, instead of a defensive hockey club that can shut down their high flyers.

Just to clarify, Edmonton fans, Blue Jackets hockey is awkward, jerky, slow progression up the ice, fueled by poor (but getting better, except for tonight) passing.  Not smoothly skating laps like we were tonight.

Blue Jackets fans, good news.  Number one, we need to do better at Calgary tomorrow.  Everyone knows that. No shock.  We lost to Calgary opening night.  We need this game back.  We evened up the Ottawa game by winning on Sunday. We lost at home, but we won on the road, canceling the game out.  We need to cancel out that other Calgary game tomorrow.  Edmonton gets to see if they can do it later in November.  That's a home game we need to win (note to self, play Blue Jackets hockey!)

That's one of the things about this new schedule format. A lot of teams you play twice.  If something bad happens early, you try to cancel it out to remain .500.  Than you hope to take advantage of a few games along the way.  It's still early season chess.  But need to win tomorrow against an improved Calgary team.  It was easier last year.

Another thought I had was about how next year will be.  I'm pretty sure that Wennberg and Dano will be down at the AHL in Springfield.  In the face of the injuries, Chaput and Collins have come up.  This is important developmentally for them Chaput and Collins.  They'll go back down to the AHL better for the experience.  The haven't been bad, but they haven't really contributed on the offensive side much.  I wonder how different that situation is next year.

Anyway, one of those nights.  Now for some haiku.  Whoo boy!

Jackets wrister wide!

Edmonton rebound, skate, score!

Deja Vu once more

Another bad night in Edmonton, one of many.  Forget it and move on.

GO JACKETS!!