Where are we now?
When it comes to the Columbus Blue Jackets, the black-and-white answer is things are not going well.
For the first time all season, Columbus has lost three games in a row, becoming the last NHL team to experience that fate, and five of seven. The goal-scoring has been anemic – just 11 goals in the past seven games. The power-play numbers continue to be abysmal.
It’s a very Blue Jackets urge right now to hit the panic button. There are four games until playoff hockey and the team can’t score. This is, of course, a problem – especially in a Metropolitan Division in which the Jackets will likely draw the Penguins in the first round just to get to the Capitals in the second. That’s just the reigning Stanley Cup champs and the soon-to-be two-time reigning Presidents’ Cup winners, for what it’s worth.
Add in an untimely appearance by the injury bug – Ryan Murray seems certain to miss the start of the playoffs, and Oliver Bjorkstrand, Lukas Sedlak and Zach Werenski have all been hit of late – and the sun is not shining on the capital city's team.
If you want to be – choose the word – pessimistic, realistic or even fatalistic, feel free. The ammunition is there, whether you're a fan or a national analyst still wondering just how good this team is.
But looking at the grays of it, I see a reasons to be encouraged.
First, I think sometimes you have to divorce the results from the actual quality of play, at least for four more games. This is perhaps the hardest thing to do as a sports fan – losses are bad and wins are good, and you’re never going to hate playing like crap in a win or truly feel good about playing well in a loss. Scoreboard, baby.
But it’s also not particularly fun to wallow in a losing skid right before the playoffs, so what positives can we take out of the Blue Jackets' quality of play of late?
I would argue – looking at the last two games – things are not as dire as some might think. Playing Chicago and Washington, the Jackets have been right in each game until the end, pushing two not just elite teams but elite teams who have been there before to the very brink.
Moral victories only get you so far, of course, but there is the reality that doing a lot of good things in losses is a heck of a lot better than not doing those good things.
And John Tortorella – who knows a fair amount about hockey – sees good things. The Blue Jackets coach famously hates to lose, but his postgame press conferences after the last two games haven’t been the fire and brimstone one might have expected. They’ve been, by and large, positive. Torts has said the team has put in good minutes, minutes they can build on as they get ready for the “real games” come playoff time.
Even the team’s offense of late is showing signs of breaking out of the slump to the coach.
“I think the last two games, we developed 17 scoring chances tonight and we had 17 (Friday night vs. Chicago),” Tortorella said after the Washington game. “That’s a lot of chances within the game. We just haven’t finished. Second period, I think we had six odd-man rushes. We just didn’t finish.
“I think the last couple of games we’ve developed more offense. We just haven’t scored. It’s tough to win when you’re scoring one goal and two goals, and we really haven’t had to live through that much this year other than of late.”
There’s two ways to look at this. Getting scoring chances means you’re doing a lot right, and one might think odds are that things will even out. Or you can say that not scoring with so many chances exposes a major flaw the team now that playoff hockey is in the offing.
Both are fair. And the results page says the Jackets aren’t getting it done right now, with just a week to get the good vibes going again. But the win-loss column also means a heck of a lot more in 10 days' time than it does right now.
So, does it feel like the Blue Jackets are in a worse spot now than, say, two weeks ago?
It does. But having taken on the best the last two games, the Jackets also showed they won’t be intimidated. They played their game for long stretches. They just didn’t get the wins.
“I know we didn’t get the results the last couple of games,” Tortorella said Sunday night, “but other than 10 minutes in that first period, in the last couple of games, I’ve liked our minutes. We have to continue to battle through these games this week. We have a lot of hockey to play still. … I trust the team. I trust that we’ll be ready.”
So where are we now?
Time will tell. If the Blue Jackets keep playing good minutes, either the worm will turn and the team will get rewarded, or they’ll keep struggling to generate goals and find their way into an early exit.
I can't wait to find out which one it is.
