As we should have expected, the Blue Jackets were heavily out-matched last night at Nationwide Arena. The Carolina Hurricanes came to town and dominated the game, walking away with two valuable points in the standings.
This one was never really in doubt for the Canes. They looked like a team skating downhill all night, beating the Blue Jackets to nearly every puck-and winning the battles for it when they did not. They broke through on the power-play twice in the first period, opening up a 2-0 lead that looked insurmountable.
The Jackets did battle back, eventually tying the game thanks to goals from Kirill Marchenko and Adam Fantilli. But, that's precisely when the Canes took the game over for good. They scored three times in the final ten minutes to put this one away.
After the game, the Blue Jackets talked about how well they played. I'm here to contradict that with the facts: they were never truly in this game. Here are three reasons I feel that way.
1. The Canes dominated this game on both sides of the puck.
I'm not big on diving into deep stats from individual games. But, I had to check myself this morning and see if the Blue Jackets' performance matched up with the eye test. Spoiler alert: it did.
Per MoneyPuck.com, the Jackets were out-attempted 71-51 last night, which is not all that surprising when you play this Carolina team. However, the concerning thing here is the spread of attempts.
Zach Werenski (9), Kirill Marchenko (7), Adam Fantilli (7), Sean Monahan (7), Ivan Provorov (5), and Cole Sillinger (4) accounted for 39 of those attempts. That means that 12 skaters on this team combined for 12 shot attempts.
That tracks with what I saw. The Jackets were basically neutered offensively outside of that top line, and a couple of random flurries throughout the game. As expected, the second line was good defensively (hey, 62% xGF%!); but offensively, they were basically useless. Narrator: shockingly, the dump and chase did not work for them.
Meanwhile, the third (29.9% xGF%) and fourth lines (0%) were basically doing cardio out there. The Jackets needed 18 skaters pulling in the same direction last night. They had maybe 7 or 8. As a result, this game was never in doubt for Carolina.
The game score essentially mirrored the final. The Blue Jackets surrendered an expected goals against between 4 and 5. The Canes, between 2 and 3. That's your 5-2 final.
Oh, by the way, don't look at the shot location chart here, it's ugly. I warned you.
2. Injuries are starting to pile up, and the depth isn't there.
Since Rick Bowness was hired, a scarcely discussed topic about this team has been their health. That's because there haven't really been any injury troubles. When they are healthy, they are a pretty good team.
One reason they are struggling right now: it seems like every game, another guy goes down with an injury. It started with Damon Severson last week, continued with the loss of Dmitri Voronkov and Mathieu Olivier. Last night, Isac Lundestrom left the game.
That doesn't make any excuse for this team's struggles. But, those guys are all very important to this lineup. And, the replacements that have come in just aren't making any kind of impact. How much different would this team be with 20+ minutes of Severson, as opposed to 7:10 of Egor Zamula last night?
You can't plan for injuries in this league, especially not at this time of year. But, I do wonder if this is something Don Waddell will take into account over the summer. You need more reliability from your depth guys when they are called upon.
3. Penalties and the penalty kill failed them.
As we have come to expect, the referees did this team no favors last night. The Canes had 5 power-play chances, the Jackets only 3-and one of those was in the final minute, when the game was already decided.
There were some brutal missed calls in this one. Miles Wood getting boarded 5 feet away from the official staring right at the play was my favorite. Though, I wouldn't debate too much if you chose the NFL football tackling of Conor Garland in the corner.
Meanwhile, every minor infraction was called the other way. Were they all penalties? I suppose they were, in the honest sense of the rulebook. But, I can't believe they didn't find more on the other team. Especially with those pick plays the Canes like to run.
With all of that aside, all you can do is control what you can control. For the Blue Jackets, that meant killing off a few penalties. They didn't do that. They gave up 3 power-play goals last night, and quite honestly, it felt lucky that there weren't more.
Overall, this wasn't a good night for this team. I think that, when they go back and watch the tape, they will agree. There is still another gear for them to find, and until they do that, the losing will continue. Bad news for the 5th Line: they get to play this same Carolina Hurricanes team in Raleigh tomorrow. We'll see if they can adjust.