Last night in Raleigh, the Blue Jackets needed to rebound from a tough outing at home on Tuesday night. Facing the same Carolina Hurricanes team, they had to be on their game early and often. Unfortunately, they played their worst game all year.
Plenty of teams go into the Lenovo Center and get blown out. It happens, even to the best teams in the NHL. But, last night was more than just your average blow out. The Canes put on an absolute clinic for the Blue Jackets, walking all over them as they clinched a playoff spot on home ice.
Unacceptable effort all around.
I have only one stat that needs to be shared here: in the middle of a playoff race, fighting for their lives: the Blue Jackets managed only 10 shots on goal. This tied a franchise record. For a team with a 25-year history of being absolutely terrible, that is wholly unacceptable.
The Canes dictated play right from the opening faceoff, and never really faced any pushback from a Columbus team that just didn't have it.
By the end of the first period, the Canes had more goals (3) than the Blue Jackets had shots (2). And it didn't get any better. When the Blue Jackets did show any fight, scoring a goal in the second period; the Canes came right back and scored again 13 seconds later.
This game ended 5-1, but it really wasn't even that close. The Hurricanes showed that when they get a lead, they are content to just sit back and break up anything the other team throws at them through the neutral zone.
You can't give that team an early lead, and you certainly can't let them stack up 3 goals on you. Especially on home ice, where they can dictate the matchups. This is the tough lesson the Jackets were taught last night.
It would be easy to point to the shot attempt differential and say something like "at least they were close", but in reality, this just tells the whole game story. Especially when you look at the shot chart. They were never even close.
The Canes owned the middle of the ice last night, on both sides of the puck. Defensively, they got more blocks and deflections; making life easier on their goaltender. Offensively, they were able to create traffic and filter pucks through to the net.
Essentially, they beat the snot out of the Blue Jackets by doing exactly what the Jackets did during their winning stretch over the prior two months. By night's end, when everyone started to look into what went wrong, the Jackets only had 2 shots from forwards. And, none of the 8 shots from the back-end were from their best player. Not good enough. Not even close.
Goaltending did them no favors.
I can't go any further without pointing out the play in the crease. Elvis Merzlikins gave up 5 goals on 21 shots last night. Yes, the team in front of him was awful. No, I'm not pinning this loss on him. It's a team loss.
But, with that said, why can't this guy make a save here and there? Despite the team's performance in front of him, he surrendered 3 goals above expected last night. This is year 5 of us saying that he needs to be better for this team to improve.
All I'm saying is this: they could have used a couple of early saves to help them stem the early tide and get their feet moving last night. That might have made a big difference in the outcome.
In conclusion: whatever has gone wrong with this team, has gone horribly wrong. Still, despite that, they are somehow in the playoff race. They will probably need to win out to do it, and if they play like they did last night, the fat lady has already started singing.
It's beyond gut check time for this team. Will anyone step up and say enough is enough? We will find out tomorrow night when they host the Winnipeg Jets.