Columbus Blue Jackets Play One Period of Hockey vs Avs

The Columbus Blue Jackets decided to only play one period of hockey last night in Colorado.

Winning in the NHL is very difficult. More difficult than I think any of us truly grasp. But the Columbus Blue Jackets decided they wanted to play the game in “Hard Mode” last night and decided to only play one period.

In fairness neither team really showed up in the first period. One power play for each team did not yield a goal and a fruitless four-on-four. Bob did make some solid saves to keep it scoreless. Colorado did have 14 shots on net but they weren’t dominating play as much as the stats say.

The second saw the first goal on a power play after Pierre-Luc Dubois‘ second penalty of the game. Mikko Rantanen wristed one past Bobrovsky for what would be the game winning goal.

The lifeless Jackets were limited to shots outside of the slot that were easily turned away by Jonathan Bernier. The perennial backup goalie was made out to look like a world beater due to the Jackets inept offense. The power play also squandered another opportunity in the second period.

Third Period

And then, just a mere 40 minutes into the game, the Jackets decided to show up. They begin the period with a minute and half left on a Colorado penalty that carried over from the second. They of course did nothing with that time.

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But the rest of the period they looked like the Jackets we expect and deserve to see. They were playing hard below the hash marks and creating some solid scoring chances. The Jackets at one point late into the third period had outshot the Avs 14-1. The ended up creating half a dozen high scoring chances that just didn’t find their way in.

An admitted poor decision by Torts led Bob to be pulled a bit too early allowing Colorado to bang home an easy “empty net” goal. It will go against Bob statistically but he was told to come off the ice when he should have and then rushed to recover to try and defend the net.

The final score of 2-0 is beyond disappointing. Bob played a great game and was only beat by a deflected shot off of Scott Harrington and by a bad coaches decision that didn’t matter in the end.

The Jackets have to find the offense and they need to find it in the veterans. Nick Foligno and Boone Jenner have been terrible of late.

The Jackets will return to Columbus where they will face the Florida Panthers on Sunday.