October has finished, and for the Blue Jackets, that might be a good thing. They enter November with a mostly healthy roster, looking to right the ship and have a better month ahead. Today, we'll reflect back on the first month of the season, and talk about where this team did well; and where they struggled.
Overall, the Jackets had a pretty poor start. They finish October with a 5-7-0 record (10 points), with the sixth-worst points percentage in the NHL (.417%). They won just one game in regulation, tied for the fewest in the league. As a result, they sit at the very bottom of the Eastern Conference, though notably, have the fewest number of games played in the league (12).
Part of that slow start could be due to the injuries they had to play through. Already thin on the blue line, the Jackets were without all three of Damon Severson, Dante Fabbro, and Ivan Provorov to start the year, with the latter just returning for their last game of the month.
Of course, that's no excuse. Every team they played was dealing with injuries in their own right, but they still found a way to compete hard and grind out points throughout the month. More than injuries, there are a few things that stand out for the Jackets. Lets dive in.
Struggling on both sides of the puck.
Looking at the standings isn't always the best method of learning about a team and their direction. Since there are discrepancies in games played, it's not a true measure of where a team lies, typically until the end of the season.
The better way of looking at things, is digging into the metrics. Unfortunately, these metrics only bolster the story of where the Blue Jackets are in the standings, and why they are here. In short wording: they stink.
The Jackets are 29th in the NHL offensively, averaging just 2.33 goals per game. The funny thing about this is, they are struggling to generate offense in spite of their young players taking large steps forward so far.
Kent Johnson leads the team in scoring with 7 goals and 12 points. He's already matched his goal total from all of last season, and we are only through the first month. Meanwhile, Adam Fantilli has started to come on strong of late, after starting slow.
Denton Mateychuk and Cole Sillinger have been timely contributors as well. The issue for the Blue Jackets is: outside of these guys and excluding assist mongers Zach Werenski and Charlie Coyle, most everyone else has been stagnant.
Take away Sillinger's 3 goals along with Coyle's one goal, and it's not hard to see why this team is struggling to score. Valeri Nichushkin, Matthew Knies, Sean Monahan, Mathieu Olivier, Dmitri Voronkov, and Conor Garland have scored just a combined 6 goals and 20 points.
That's an entire middle six on pace for 42 goals and 140 points this season. That just isn't going to cut it, especially not if the goal is to have Knies playing on the top line. They need these guys to get going, and very soon, if they are going to start changing their plight.
Defensively, things are not much better. The Jackets are tied for 19th in the league here, averaging 3.25 goals against per game. This is the category that is likely driving head coach Rick Bowness absolutely insane. Like the offensive side of things, it's not hard to see where the issue lies.
Caved in.
The defensive side of the game can be summed up with the 5 on 5 advanced metrics found at MoneyPuck.com. The Jackets struggle defensively because they don't have the puck enough. That's really the gist of it.
They have a CORSI% rating of 48.9%, which is 19th in the league. That lines up directly with their goals against average. We can double down and look at their expected goals percentage (xGF%), which is 47.24%. That means the other team is expected to score about 53%.
Their PDO is at 99.03%, so it's not like they aren't getting poor goaltending, or running into hot goaltending at the other end. One main difference: unlike last year, they aren't seeing games stolen by their goaltender. Basically, they are a "mid" team at even strength, and their standings reflect that.
All of this could be salvageable if their special teams could bail them out. But again, they just aren't good enough here. They have the 29th-place power-play in the league (12.9%), and the 23rd-place penalty kill (73%).
First month grade: D-
The reality of the situation is, this team was built to be big, heavy, and low event; which they are doing on some nights, but not all of them. Teams designed to play that kind of hockey have to have good special teams units, which in theory would vault them over their 5 on 5 stalemate.
That whole game plan isn't working, and there isn't an easy fix in sight. The best way to put it is, the players need to play better for this team to turn its season around; especially the veterans. Maybe the changing of the calendar will help them do that.
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