Despite a late surge of their own, the Blue Jackets fall to the Carolina Hurricanes

The Storm Surge was performed once again last night from center ice at Lenovo Arena in Raleigh. But it was a less certain outcome than it had been 20 minutes prior on the game clock.

The Columbus Blue Jackets continued their early season road game woes in Carolina last night against the defending Stanley Cup champions Carolina Hurricanes. They fell to 5-6-0 on the young campaign by a final score of 3 to 2. The score doesn't show a completely accurate picture of how close the game wasn't for most of the time on the game clock, but the outcome is regardless the same.

Carolina took a first period lead into the first intermission in Raleigh off of a sweet set of moves ultimately finished off by Jordan Martinook, who cut through an admittedly rather lazy-looking Blue Jackets Defense, and sent one over Jet Greaves' glove side for the game's first goal.

The Jackets had a great amount of trouble in the first period securing the slot and middle of the ice in the neutral zone and on the defensive end, and it showed with the confused structure of their backcheck on the Hurricanes' first goal.

The CBJ came out with some better wheels and looks in the second, highlighted by a shuffle around Carolina netminder Pyotr Kochetkov initiated by a Matthew Knies wrap-around, but couldn't get the puck past the big Russian.

Logan Stankoven received a pass from Nik Ehlers in the middle of the ice, and under the stick of Blue Jackets Defenseman Damon Severson, and Stankoven, and sent it past Greaves' blocker side to make it 2-0 with over 12 to go in the second period.

Werenski and Severson were both caught staring at Ehlers for too long on this play, and it bit them. The entire CBJ defense corps had a very rough first two periods before their third period surge, and for a team that relies so much on the D-men to set up their offense, it was a recipe for disaster for most of the game.

Immediately out of the gates in the third period, Carolina added another to their lead, and what ultimately was the game winning goal. Just sixteen seconds in, Severson was beat off a puck behind the net by Seth Jarvis, who flipped it to an uncovered Mark Jankowski in the slot, who fired it past Jet.

The Jackets found their "A" game.

The Jackets would finally get on the board not long after, off of a brilliant pass by Jake Christiansen across the ice to Denton Mateychuk, who sent a rocket of a snap shot past Kochetkov.

Ultimately, the Hurricanes started getting called for a number of penalties in the third, which gave the Jackets a chance to get back into the game. Straight off the faceoff for the 2 minutes for Sean Walker for tripping, Kent Johnson's leg deflected a Charlie Coyle pass behind Kochetkov's pads and into the back of the net.

But ultimately, despite the late surge of their ownn, the Jackets weren't able to send another past the Hurricanes netminder before the final buzzer sounded, and they began their trip off of the ice and onto Dallas.

There were things to like in this game, especially at the end. The Jackets spent too much time almost seeming to be in awe of the defending champions, and spent too much time in the first overly-respecting the Hurricanes' capacity for quick scoring, and it's partially why they ultimately lost this one.

But, the young core of Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli and Denton Mateychuk continued to look productive, and the D-corps really woke up in the third. Charlie Coyle spoke after the game of bringing some of their energy from the third into Dallas on Saturday.

"“If we play a full game like we did in the second and third, we love the way we play. You’re not going to win every time like that. But we’re going to win more games than we lose when we play that way.”"

Charlie Coyle

The Blue Jackets next take the ice on Saturday in Dallas against the Stars.

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