The Blue Jackets left their fans with another disappointing loss on Tuesday night. The Florida Panthers came to town and had their way, beating the Jackets 4-1 despite a strong effort by the home team. This loss drops the Jackets to 7-9-0 on the year.
The first period last night went scoreless, with the Panthers outshooting the Jackets by a 10-9 margin. It was a tight checking 20 minutes with few whistles. Unfortunately, they had us right where they wanted us. After all, they were entering the dreaded second period.
They were able to get the scoring started thanks to one of the worst penalty calls I've ever seen. As Charlie Coyle straddled the blue line and tried to remain onside, Seth Jones skated into his hip and fell down. The referee on the backside of the play called tripping. There was no tripping. Coyle wasn't as surprised by the contact as Jones.
Of course, that doesn't matter. There is no way to challenge a penalty in hockey, so the Jackets had to kill it off. They were unable to do so. Anton Lundell broke down the wing and torched Denton Mateychuk before cutting to the inside and feeding a wide open Sam Bennett to make it a 1-0 game.
Just over two minutes later, the Panthers struck again thanks to a puck bobbled by Ivan Provorov just inside of his own blueline. Lars Eller was the recipient of a nifty feed from Carter Verhaeghe, burying an uncontested shot from right in the slot to make it 2-0.
The Jackets were able to cut that lead in half and give themselves the momentum heading into the third. That was because Provorov made up for his mistake on the second goal by taking the game into his own hands, skating down the slot and firing a backhander into the net with less than 19 seconds left in the second.
Third period promise, all for nothing.
The Jackets used that momentum to dominate for most of the third period, but their offense just could not find an equalizer. They would out-shoot their opponent 15-7, part of that due to a power-play chance that looked very confident.
However, they just could not get over the hump, and the Panthers were able to find the dagger with less than 6 minutes remaining. Sam Bennett took advantage of soft coverage entering the CBJ zone, walked right to the left circle, and fired a shot past Cam Talbot to make it 3-1.
They would get an empty net goal with just over two minutes remaining, but the game was well decided by that point. The Jackets continue to struggle offensively, with no real sign of hope that it's going to change.
Despite the analytics liking their chances to win last night, I thought there was a lot of wasted effort from the home side. Too many pucks on net with no traffic. Again, too many passes out of the high danger scoring areas (why do the keep doing this?). In general: no killer instinct offensively.
Whatever has their scoring confidence broken, is costing them their season. It's slowly slipping away right before our eyes. They now sit tied for the worst record in the Eastern Conference, once again. We may be in for another long year of hockey in Columbus.
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