The Jackets didn’t exactly set the world on fire last week, dropping two straight home games after a dominant win at Winnipeg. The Jackets now sport a 5-3-0 record, good enough for fourth in the Metropolitan, just one point above the suddenly-hot Islanders.
Here’s what we learned this week:
Better Lucky Than Good
The biggest takeaway from the past two games is that it takes more than just skill to consistently win in this league. Okay, so that’s not a new lesson – but we got a reminder this weekend.
The Jackets dominated possession on Thursday night. It didn’t matter – they ran into a hot goalie. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped all 43 Columbus shots and the Bolts snuck two of their 21 shots past Sergei Bobrovsky and left Columbus with the win.
Saturday’s game was a different, weirder story. Just take a look at Drew Doughty’s goal.
HUH? Doughty goal pic.twitter.com/qrq0djHxAt
— steph (@myregularface) October 22, 2017
Yeah. Weird.
Anyways, the advanced stats paint a more positive picture than 0-2. The Jackets expected goals for in that Saturday game was an impressive 4.54 – substantially above the Kings’ 3.34 mark. Thursday’s game was an impressive outing for the Jackets from a shot attempts perspective – their relative Corsi was 59.14% – although the teams were essentially dead even in expected goals (2.26 for Columbus, 2.18 for Tampa Bay).
A couple of defensive breakdowns and some un-Bob like games led to a couple of losses, but the underlying stats are still positive.
Don’t Sweat the Slumps
We touched on this in yesterday’s Five Thoughts, but the CBJ power play finally got on the board against the Kings, breaking a long drought. Oliver Bjorkstrand and Matt Calvert broke their long goal-less streaks as well, and Sonny Milano got back on track, too. Nick Foligno and Jack Johnson also scored their first goals of the season last week, both coming against the Jets.
So, why is this here again?
Don’t look now, but Pierre-Luc Dubois hasn’t registered a point since his opening-night goal, and Brandon Dubinsky has just one point – an assist – through eight games this season.
Also, it’s been a rough couple of games for Sergei Bobrovsky. After an absurdly hot start, Bob now has a sub-.900 save percentage in two of his last three games (and a below-average .905 against Tampa). We all know Bob’s pedigree – a two-time Vezina winner and a franchise cornerstone. This stretch may not be long enough to be called a ‘slump’ just yet, but given his talent, it’s not likely to reach that point.
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