The struggle continues for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who have now lost 7 of their last 8 games. This team has had many highs and lows already this season, which had me wondering: what gives?
If anything, we can call them inconsistent. Or, maybe it's better to call them consistently inconsistent. With just 12 wins in 31 games, they already have losing streaks of 3, 4 (current) and 6 games in a row. Without digging too deep, there is a pretty obvious answer here.
Not the injury excuse again...
I'm sure you're tired of the injury discourse, but at least in this season, there seems to be a correlation between players on IR and the way this team produces. They have been without Boone Jenner for the entire season - and Erik Gudbranson for most of it. They're currently without Justin Danforth, as well.
But I'm not talking about the depth guys here. I'm talking about top-sixers: Kent Johnson and Yegor Chinakhov. Without Johnson, the Jackets went 5-7-2 in 14 games. Without him in the lineup, they scored 3 or more goals just 5 times - and they lost all but one game where they scored fewer than 3 goals.
Without Chinakhov, the Jackets are 3-5-2. The story is oddly similar here; in 10 games (so far), they have scored 3 or more goals 6 times. In those games, they're 3-2-1. Not bad, but it's even more impressive when you take away that game against the Flyers last week. In that game, they were down 5-1, only to score a couple of late ones when the game was well out of hand. Taking away the garbage time goals, their record in games with 3 or more goals without Chinny is 3-1-1.
When they outscore their shortcomings, they win...
We've talked ad nauseam about this team's shortcomings in goal and on the blue line. We've also pointed out that this team isn't going to score 4+ goals per game all season. This roster just isn't built to be that good, quite yet.
What's happening here is a team that has seen its offense come crashing down. Whether that coincides with the injuries to Johnson and Chinakhov or not, is absolutely up for debate. But, the team has only had a healthy top-six for 7 games this season. Their record in those 7 games? 4-2-1, with 32 goals for (4.57 per game) and 28 goals against (4.00 per game).
What does this all mean?
In my opinion, this tells us that the next step in this team's development is finding a way to keep pucks out of their net. Whether that's making changes in goal, changing the scheme, or moving pieces in and out on the back-end; that's what this team has to do to win games more consistently.
Even with a fully healthy lineup, if you need 4+ goals to win every night, you're asking for a lottery pick. So no, I'm not blaming this year's struggles on injuries. They have to give up fewer in the defensive zone - otherwise, maybe we should start looking at top draft prospects again.