It’s time for the Blue Jackets to back their words up with actions.
They’ve got six games left to save their playoff hopes, and if there’s even a shred of good news after being shellacked 5-1 by the Carolina Hurricanes on April 2 in Raleigh, North Carolina, it’s that last part.
Remarkably, despite losing their past five games to go 1-5-1 since ending a 12-game points streak, the Blue Jackets (38-26-12) remain in the thick of a packed field in the Eastern Conference vying for the last playoff spots. Despite getting booted from the second of wild card by the Ottawa Senators, the Jackets are now tied at 88 points with Ottawa and the Detroit Red Wings.
There’s time left to repair their battered ship, which is riddled with injuries, but it’s taking on water fast after an ugly loss to the Hurricanes (48-21-6) for the second time in three days.
“We had some guys out there (pour) their whole heart and soul into that game, we really did, and then we had some guys give us absolutely nothing,” Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said at his postgame press conference, which the team posted on YouTube. “So, if we want to make a serious effort to get in, it’s going to take a whole lot more than some of those guys gave us tonight.”
After a pause, he fired a second shot across the bow.
“They can say all they want, ‘Oh, we want to get in, we want to get in,’” Bowness said. “I’d shut up and let my play do my talking for me.”
Here are five takeaways:
Carolina Hurricanes hold Columbus Blue Jackets to record futility
Prior to their skid, the Blue Jackets held opponents to low shot totals. The Hurricanes flipped that script on them in the past two games, outshooting them 33-25 in a 5-2 win March 31 at Nationwide Arena before smothering the Jackets’ attack with a 21-10 edge in the rematch.
That shot total tied a Blue Jackets franchise record for the fewest in a game, which was set April 1, 2003 in Philadelphia, almost 23 years to the day earlier.
Carolina Hurricanes mitigate Columbus Blue Jackets star Zach Werenski
The Blue Jackets go as their top defenseman goes, since Zach Werenski is also their leading scorer.
Werenski is the Blue Jackets’ lone superstar, which means they usually don’t score much if he’s not putting pucks in the net or creating goals with assists.
Opponents are now paying more attention to Werenski, ramping up physical play and not letting him roam as freely. As a result, Werenski is being limited in the two biggest areas that helped push him to elite levels of scoring by a defenseman the past two seasons.
His attempts and shots have dropped during the Jackets’ 1-5-1 slide, dipping from 7.8 attempts and 3.5 shots per game in his first 62 games to 7.0 attempts and 2.1 shots in the past seven. He finished with just three attempts and no shots on goal in the latest loss to Carolina.
The Blue Jackets desperately another scoring surge from Werenski in their final six games.
Columbus Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness cites ‘selfish’ play again
As the season unravels, Bowness is discovering some of the Jackets’ bad habits that led to him replacing Dean Evason on Jan. 12 as head coach.
Following the game in Raleigh, Bowness even sounded like Evason while feeling astounded that things coaches covered in a morning team video session didn’t stick.
“(Carolina) got three goals tonight on something that we covered this morning, about better coverage around our net … and they didn’t do what we wanted them to do,” Bowness said. “I saw some selfish play that I haven’t seen … until now.”
That last part isn’t entirely accurate.
Bowness said something similar about the Jackets after a 3-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks on March 28 at Nationwide Arena, where the winning goal was scored with 1:25 left in the third period. Bowness has now used the term “selfish” two times in less than a week to describe players in the Jackets’ lineup.
Columbus Blue Jackets need more aggression
Losing Olivier to an upper-body injury in a stinging 4-3 shootout loss to the Boston Bruins on March 29 didn’t help matters up front, but the Blue Jackets had already begun to soften.
They were flat against the Sharks, which prompted a fast start against Boston that led to back-to-back fights for Erik Gudbranson and Olivier. The Jackets’ willingness to deliver body checks, however, has looked extremely low given the stakes of these games.
Part of the issue may be the number of questionable penalties they’ve been given while battling for pucks, but the Jackets’ emotion and physicality are noticeably low.
“Some guys gave us everything they could, but some of the other guys didn’t,” Bowness said. “So, some of the emotion was … yeah, some did, some didn’t.”
Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikins wasn’t sharp
Jet Greaves has gotten the lion’s share of playing time, while Elvis Merzlikins has watched as a backup much more than usual. He got the start April 2 against the Hurricanes, was hung out to dry, struggled to find his rhythm and wasn’t sharp.
Merzlikins also allowed a short-handed goal to Hurricanes defenseman Alexander Nikishin in the first period that made it 3-0 on a shot he’d probably like another crack at stopping.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets takeaways: Put up or ‘shut up’
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