PREVIEW: Blue Jackets look to get back in win column vs. Ottawa
Homestand continues with Sunday night hockey against the Senators
Late last week, things were pretty black and white for the Blue Jackets. They played one of their best games of the season while beating Carolina by a 6-0 score, then fell 9-2 at Florida two days later in one of their worst performances of the campaign.
But the last two games have been a little more confounding. Columbus did bounce back from the loss to the Panthers to post a 2-1 win at Philadelphia on Thursday night, but while the Jackets had plenty of grit on display to close out a win while shorthanded, it would be a stretch to call it a great performance.
GAMEDAY GUIDE: Sillinger, Gavrikov return against Sens
Then Friday night, the Blue Jackets put together more minutes of quality hockey than they had at any point since the Carolina game, standing toe-to-toe with a streaking Pittsburgh team for much of the night in front of an amped-up Nationwide Arena. But penalties and other misfortune over the last 10 minutes sent the team to a 5-2 loss that was much closer than the final score would indicate.
Afterward, head coach Brad Larsen knew his team had turned in a good effort.
"When you're talking about the quality of hockey and who we played and competitiveness in all three zones, we skated with a pretty good hockey team tonight," Larsen said. "There's lots we can look back on and when I go over the tape, I'm sure there will be a lot of positive things here we can hopefully use going moving forward."
Captain Boone Jenner also thought the Blue Jackets did what they had to do in Philly but had a better game against Pittsburgh. Throughout the contest against the Penguins, nearly all of the stats at 5-on-5 were even throughout the game, from shot attempts to expected goals to the amount of time each team had possession in the offensive zone.
That was because of the tremendous effort the team put in throughout the game on an energetic night in Nationwide, and now the goal is to keep it going two evenings later against a struggling Ottawa team.
"I think you can see it when we play to our strengths for a number of minutes in this game, I thought we built off last night," Jenner said after the Pens game. "We had some good minutes tonight. When we play to our strengths we can wear teams down, use our speed and forechecking, and we're getting more of that. We just have to keep building on that."
Know the Foe
Ottawa has missed the playoffs in each of the past five years, and with a big rebuild under way, the team is well on the way to a sixth straight year without Stanley Cup hockey as the team is currently second from bottom in the Eastern Conference.
It's been a rough road for D.J. Smith's team from the world go, as a 4-15-1 start pretty much doomed the team from the very beginning. The Sens did win five of six after that, but since then a 2-4-2 run -- including last night's 3-2 loss at Washington -- has the team looking for a turnaround yet again.
Defense has been a consistent problem from the start of the year, with Ottawa giving up at least five goals in a game 12 times, at least six on six different occasions and seven twice. With 3.65 goals allowed per game, the Senators are third from lasft from Montreal for last in the league, and the other numbers -- 21stin offense (2.79 goals per game), 18h in power play (19.2 percent) and 17th in penalty kill (78.7 percent) -- haven't allowed the team to overcome the defensive struggles.
As one might expect given those numbers, goaltending has been a consistent struggle for the team, continuing a trend from the past few seasons. Former CBJ prospect Anton Forsberg has the best numbers on the season for the team -- in 15 games (14 starts), he's 6-6-1 with a 3.17 goals-against average and .907 save percentage -- but Filip Gustavsson (12 games) and former Pens goalie Matt Murray (10 games) also have played. Gustavsson is 3-8-1/3.79/.892 while Murray is 2-6-1/3.64/.894.
If there's a reason for optimism among Sens fans, it's the youth on the roster, as six of the team seven scorers are age 25 or younger. Drake Batherson (23 years old) leads the way on the scoring chart with 12 goals and 21 assists for 33 points in 29 games, while 22-year-old Josh Norris has a team-best 18 goals among his 26 points.
Brady Tkachuk, meanwhile, is having another solid year at age 22, posting a 12-14-26 line in 31 games. Thomas Chabot continues to be one of the more dependable defensemen in the league, leading the NHL with 27:07 played per night and notching a 2-18-20 line. Tim Stützle (20) adds 2-18-20 and Alex Formenton (22) has a 7-9-16 line.
