Breaking down why the Blue Jackets are struggling on special teams

The Blue Jackets are 12 games into their campaign, which is plenty of time to settle in and assess where this team stands within the NHL. While their game results have been mostly positive, there is one major area of concern: special teams.

Whether anybody wants to admit it or not, a lot of games are won and lost in this league based on special teams play. This is particularly true when you are a team that is on the bubble, or trying to take the next step like the Jackets are.

On several nights already this season, we can look at their games and see where they have lost as a direct result of their power-play and/or penalty kill letting them down.

Look no further than last night. The Jackets lost 3-2 on Long Island, despite having 4 power-plays and taking only 2 minor penalties. Their goal differential on special teams was still -1, even with the extra advantages.

One goal loss. One goal differential on special teams. How many years have we seen this now?

The bad news here is: the team is heading out for a week long road trip into Western Canada. There isn't going to be a lot of time for practice and adjustments, so it ultimately comes down to the players to execute better. Let's dive into why things aren't working.

The penalty kill has been abysmal.

Just stating the facts here: the penalty kill has been absolutely horrible to start the season. The Jackets have allowed 8 power-play goals against in 12 games, with 40 shorthanded opportunities.

That's a 66.7% penalty kill efficiency, good for 30th in the league. For comparison, the Jackets finished last season at 77%, good for 22nd in the league.

This summer, GM Don Waddell went out and acquired two veteran players specifically with the idea that they help on the penalty kill: Miles Wood and Charlie Coyle. So, we should be seeing improvement in this department. Instead, it's gone the other way.

Taking a look at last night's goal, it's pretty easy to see the pitfalls. The Jackets lose the faceoff clean, and the Islanders have possession as a result. But instead of finding their shape, this unit never really gets set, and it takes just 10 seconds to give up the goal.

Even to the untrained eye, there are plenty of issues to pick apart on this play. Right from the moment the Islanders start whipping the puck around, a Blue Jacket leaves the penalty killing shape and attacks the puck.

At even strength, this man coverage works because every man can be accounted for by another skater. But on the penalty kill, the moment you leave that box shape, you open up a passing lane for the opponent.

For a team that relies so heavily on team play and sticking to their systems, this is not ideal. And, they got an expected result.

The Islanders gladly take advantage of Denton Mateychuk's early aggression and fire a pass clean through the slot to an open man. He's open because the weak side defenseman (Ivan Provorov) has to cheat into the middle, leaving him in what I call "no man's land" - a position where he's too far to pressure the puck, and not far enough away to break up a pass.

This draws Sean Monahan down out of his quadrant, leaving Matthew Schaefer all of the time in the world to fire a shot through the chaotic traffic and into the net. Meanwhile, Charlie Coyle was having to scramble and try to pressure the opposite side of the point - which again opened up other options, had Schaefer decided to do something else.

This entire sequence is an example of what not to do on the PK. Whether that pressure is by design or just mistakes from the personnel, it was a disaster. This has been the case all season.

In my opinion, this is easily corrected. There is no reason for a defenseman to chase the puck nearly all the way to the point on the penalty kill, unless the puck is free enough that he thinks he can clear it. If he doesn't clear it, there's no way he can allow it to come back down low cleanly.

Get a stick on it, deflect it, whatever it takes to prevent the open man from getting the puck clean. At that point, it's more about effort and work than anything else.

But, the reality of the whole play is this: if they simply stay in their box shape, this goal probably never happens. We can say that quite a few times early this year. Let's dive into the power-play on the next page.