The Columbus Blue Jackets will be just fine.
It doesn’t feel that way at this moment, at what could be the lowest point of what’s been a roller coaster season. I'm here to tell you things will get better, because history says things will get better.
I’m putting it on record right now: the Blue Jackets will make the playoffs this season.
The wins haven’t been there, but the Jackets have played very well, particularly from a shot generation standpoint. This Blue Jackets team leads the league in shots per game at 34.9 and at 5-on-5 they lead the league with 1,689 shots. Their 34.9 shots per game clip is the highest average for a team since the 2008-09 powerhouse Red Wings averaged 36.2.
At 5-on-5, the Jackets are in elite territory with their ability to create shots. According to Corsica, the Blue Jackets are averaging 34.52 shots per 60 minutes; not only is that the highest in the league this season, it would be the highest by any team since 2008-09, the farthest back Corsica has reliable data for.
Since 2008-09, there have been 30 teams to have at least 32 shots per 60 minutes. If we ignore the eight teams from this season, the other 22 have been wildly successful. Of these 22 teams, 19 made the playoffs and eight of them went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. Teams that get the puck on net this often tend to be really good teams, and the Blue Jackets are right there with them.
When you shoot this often, you should score a lot of goals.
The Jackets still have the lowest shooting percentage in the league in all situations at 7.3%. When you see a team take that many shots and convert on so few of them, the thought is the team is just loading up on shots from the outside, lower-danger chances that the goalies are easily stopping. That is not the case here: using Corsica’s expected goals model, the Blue Jackets have been expected to score 132.95 goals at 5-on-5. They have scored 113, and that -19.95 differential is the third-lowest in the league.
If you include special teams, it's the same story.
Goals vs expectation by team
— Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey) February 19, 2018
Tbl, Col, and Wsh have the most all-situations goals above expectation.
Car, Mtl, and Cbj underperforming most.
Hover over individual bars for names here: https://t.co/b5bFGXA1Hp pic.twitter.com/PDcUzdB8Qh
Over each 60-minute segment, the Jackets are expected to score 2.72 goals at 5-on-5. Going back to those 22 teams from before, 2.72 is tied for the second-highest with the 2016-17 Penguins, a team that I don’t need to remind you won the Stanley Cup. If you prefer scoring chances, the Jackets average 11.77 high-danger chances at 5-on-5, the eighth-most this season.
On those chances they have converted at just 11.52%, the eighth-lowest rate in the league.
These numbers should rebound and the Jackets should start scoring more goals more consistently. Looking at the roster, this is not a team that is going to shoot the lights out like Tampa Bay. They don’t have that kind of talent. They do have talented players, though, and this is not a team that should have a bottom-of-the-barrel shooting percentage.
Everyone hates hearing this, but some bad luck has been involved here as well. The Jackets have had some really good goalies play really well against them, and seen some not-so-good goalies do the same.
This team is far from perfect. They aren’t that good defensively and rely maybe a bit too much on Sergei Bobrovsky. But a lot can change between now and the trade deadline, but this is still going to be an elite shot generation team regardless of trades. If history has taught us anything, those teams tend to be very very good. The Blue Jackets will figure this out.
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