The Blue Jackets need Elvis Merzlikins to find the game he was playing before the Olympics

The Blue Jackets lost to the Utah Mammoth on Saturday night, in a game that they played pretty well in. Unfortunately, not well enough to get an important two points in the standings. They lost 5-4 in overtime.

Any time you give up 5 goals in a game, you aren't giving yourself the best chance of winning. I thought the Jackets did a good job carrying the play for long stretches of that game, but they were too loose in doing so.

As a result, they gave up several odd-man chances against. A few of which wound up in the back of their net-including the overtime winner. I'm not going to break down every goal, but let's talk about the one that got everything started for the Mammoth.

Sometimes, you just need a save.

On the first Utah goal, the Blue Jackets made a bad line change. This one turned in to a calamity of errors, with Mason Marchment doing his best "polar bear in Texas" impersonation. He collides with Denton Mateychuk, which takes both of them out of the play and allows Michael Carcone to break down the wing.

We mentioned it just after the goal: you always hold your breath when someone has a free rush down the wing on Elvis Merzlikins. When he has to move side to side or push back towards his post, he has a tendency to never get set. That's the case here.

Carcone fires a shot far side, and with Elvis slightly over-committed, he's unable to get himself square for the shot. This one goes in far easier than it should on an NHL goaltender.

At that point in the game, the Blue Jackets were dominating possession. The shots on goal were 4-1, with the first Utah shot coming just one minute before this goal. After this goal, momentum swung the other way, with the Mammoth collecting the next 5 shots on goal over an 8-minute span.

Simply put: this killed everything the Blue Jackets had done well to that point. This wasn't the case of a defensive breakdown with a high quality scoring chance. Two guys ran into each other and allowed a shot on goal from the faceoff dot. Sometimes, you need your goaltender to make a save and bail you out.

Now, I can't go any further without mentioning the absurd save that Merzlikins made just minutes later. He takes this one right off the goal line, atoning for the ugly first one against.

But, that has been the knock on him for his entire NHL career. That one ugly goal against always seems to cripple this team. It did on Saturday night. Let's go one step further and look at all six games since the team returned from the Olympic break.

The Blue Jackets win when they give up fewer goals.

Both goalies have started three games since the end of the Olympics. Again, we have to point out the obvious: these guys play for the same team. One or two bodies may come in and out of the lineup on any given night, but it's the same system, structure, etc.

In his three starts, Elvis Merzlikins is 1-1-1, with a .850% save percentage (this includes two saves in relief on March 3rd). He's allowed 12 goals on 80 shots, with his win coming in a game where he allowed 4 goals.

Meanwhile, Jet Greaves is 2-0-1, with a .898% save percentage. He's allowed 8 goals on 78 shots, with his lone loss coming in a game where he allowed 4 goals. This is what we're talking about when we say "one more save".

Even from the simplest perspective, you can see where that one ugly goal against can really cost this team. This doesn't even dive into the underlying numbers, which tells the story even further.

The Blue Jackets are going to need both of these guys to be at their very best down the stretch. They can't have the odd night off, so whatever it takes for Elvis Merzlikins to rediscover the game he was playing before the Olympics, needs to happen soon.