As the Columbus Blue Jackets finally hit double-digit wins for the first time this season, all eyes are on their slow improvement compared to what the hockey world saw last week. Yes, their back-to-back wins were against the injury-riddled Detroit Red Wings and Dallas Stars and that’s okay.
At the end of the day, a win is a win, regardless against who. The truth of the matter is, the Blue Jackets needed these wins badly before their regular season continued to spiral out of control. You know, to the point where it completely derails and then drastic changes need to happen in order to right the ship.
Thankfully, they got the job done, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s all that truly matters. Now they have the potential to end the week with three straight wins as they have one more date on Saturday against the Stars. If they can do that, it’ll set things up nicely for next week as they’ll be off until Tuesday.
Besides the much-needed win to boost the team’s confidence, it was a great sight to see the Blue Jackets being so aggressive on defense. Consistency is key in stringing together winning streaks and if the Blue Jackets can keep playing like they have been so far this week, they can only continue heading in the right direction.
Being able to close out the game by not giving up the lead, it looks like the overall defense of the Blue Jackets is starting to develop an identity. It’ll still take some time but seeing this defense kill penalty time effectively as they did against the Stars can only help boost their confidence, even if it’s against a bad team.
Yeah, this was mostly a slow-paced defensive game but again, a win is a win. In a short, 56-game season, hockey teams need to get all the wins and goals they can get to continue their efforts. Even though head coach John Tortorella has used the exact same lineup for five straight games in a row now, it’s at least working to get some notches in the wins column.
Overall, don’t be discouraged that the Blue Jackets are only putting things together against bad teams for now. Winning fixes everything as the real tests will come in due time. For now, let’s focus on the positives in that their defense is playing better, they’re on a two-game winning streak, and are at least beating teams they’re supposed to.