Sabres Embarrass the Jackets

How bad was it? Oh man, it was bad.

By the time the Blue Jackets got their first shot on goal, the game was already 3-0 Sabres, and goaltender Joonas Korpisalo had been pulled. Then they scored again. This prompted Sean Kuraly to try to get the bench going by showing some emotion … which led to a 4 minute power-play for the Sabres. Of course, they scored, again… 5-0.

A Jack Roslovic hooking penalty three minutes later? 6-0 game. All-time good guy Darren Pang dumped on the Jackets for their defensive lapses and lack of energy. At the first intermission, the national broadcast team openly laughed about the Jackets. They deserved it. We summed their performance up right here:

If you’ve followed hockey at all for the last 22 years, this says a lot. The Jackets have only made the playoffs 6 times in those 22 years – winning a series just once. They’ve been mired in mediocrity. I think back to Steve Mason’s sophomore year, when then Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville could simply quip “we scored easily tonight”. I think further back to the days when Geoff Sanderson was our offense. Our only offense.

And yet somehow, with this assembled team, with all the talent they’ve built up here, in a year where they were supposed to be better … we find ourselves watching the worst period of hockey I can ever recall from a Blue Jackets team. Where was the fight? Where was the care, the pride? They had nothing, zero last night, and as fans, we watched the national media literally laughing at us. At our team. For plays like this:

There are excuses to be made. Third game in four nights. Lots of guys on IR. A recent illness through the team. But I’m not having it. This isn’t junior hockey, where you’re playing 16-20 year old kids on limited rosters. This isn’t a minor league team that’s been gutted due to call-ups.

This is the NHL. All 23 of these guys are here for a reason. Even with the injuries, the illness, and the youth, there is zero excuse to simply not show up for a game. And it wasn’t just this game; we can look back on several games this season and point out a late-starting Jackets team. The only difference last night is, they never woke up. This post-game comment is simply alarming, and speaks to a possible cause:

We’ve seen everything about the culture built by John Tortorella evaporate in less than two years. Gone are the tough practices and the accountability. Now we have a veteran player, who has been in this league for 12 seasons, commenting about soft practices. Say what you want about Gudbranson’s abilities on the ice – the fact of the matter is, this seems like a call out.

Those are the kinds of words you hear from teams that are starting to question their coaching staff. And last night, they sure played like a team that wasn’t hearing what the coaching staff is throwing down. It’s not in me to call for a coach’s head; and I’m in no place to start naming replacements.

Want your voice heard? Join the Union And Blue team!

Write for us!

But what I will say is, while our expectations for this season are pretty low, losing games because the players obviously don’t care or have the desire to play, is simply unacceptable. Even by our standards. This is a results driven industry, and at some point, no matter how much potential you see in a guy, or how friendly they are, you have to start getting results.

Letting the team have an easy practice is encouraging the team to take it easy during the game. They didn’t look ready to play last night. That falls directly on the coaching staff, and it certainly seems like the Blue Jackets are going backwards.

It doesn’t seem like one or two mid-season changes to the roster is going to fix the issues here. It’s also not about salvaging this season. It’s about not dumping our entire future because we like the guys behind the bench or feel like they deserve a chance to right the ship. We’ve had too many games like the one last night, and that’s called building a losing culture.

We cannot accept a losing culture in Columbus ever again. To be made the laughing stock of the league at the hands of the team who has the longest current playoff drought, is unacceptable. Something has to energize this team, and soon. If they want to keep this coaching staff around, then so be it. But they need to be made accountable for the on ice results.