The Jackets left San Jose last night in eighth place in the Eastern Conference – the same spot that they woke up in – but briefly lost their playoff spot yesterday before securing two points. We're headed down the stretch, and last week's West Coast swing only makes things more dire. Here's what we learned in the Golden State.
Their biggest threat lies outside of the Metro
Up until the last few days, it was assumed by just about everyone that both of the wild card spots would go to someone in the Metropolitan Division. For about two hours last night, that wasn’t the case for the first time in a while.
The Florida Panthers have been a team on fire lately, and one that seemingly came out of nowhere to briefly claim the second wild card spot last night, before a Blue Jackets reclaimed it with a win.
A few under-the-radar hockey darlings have been carrying the Panthers, as Alexander Barkov (over a point per game despite starting roughly 60% of his shifts in the defensive zone), Vincent Trocheck and Jonathan Huberdeau have been leading the charge. Roberto Luongo has been lights-out since his return, too, and first-year head coach Bob Boughner has the club looking a lot like this year’s version of the Nashville Predators.
They have games in hand over the Jackets, too, so it’ll be a tough battle for the Jackets to stay in that eight seed.
One Deep Squad
Even without a key forward in Josh Anderson and an emerging stud defenseman like Markus Nutivaara, the Blue Jackets threw out a damn deep lineup last night in San Jose.
Thanks to some timely injury recoveries (Sonny Milano, Ryan Murray) and depth pickups at the deadline, the Jackets had a solid NHL guy in every lineup slot last night.
#CBJ lines in warm-ups:
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) March 5, 2018
Panarin - Dubois - Atkinson
Milano - Foligno - Bjorkstrand
Calvert - Dubinsky - Letestu
Jenner - Wennberg - Vanek
That’s right – even with a key injury, the Blue Jackets are able to, for the first time in a while, roll four good lines.
They’re not throwing too much on the new guys’ plates early on, but their presence has allowed younger guys to flourish. Mark Letestu (8:54) and Thomas Vanek (10:11) were the only forwards playing under 13:30 last night (none topped Artemi Panarin’s 17:19) while Ian Cole’s 13:48 was significantly less than the rest of his blue line cohorts, with the other five all playing over 19 minutes.
Life Ain’t Easy on the West Coast
Last night’s win may have been the biggest of the season, but it came on the back of two less-than-inspiring performances. The Jackets got off to a roaring start in the first period of the first game, against the Los Angeles Kings, before coming unraveled.
A 2-0 lead thanks to perhaps the best period of the season for the Jackets got squandered when Joonas Korpisalo let in five unanswered goals in the game’s last two frames, and the next night, the Jackets looked predictably flat against a good Anaheim squad.
They’d better get used to playing on Pacific Standard Time, though, because they’re headed back out west at the end of the month. Two trips that long in one month is absolutely brutal scheduling, but luckily they’re not playing the California teams next time. Instead, they’ll square off against the Flames, Oilers and Canucks.
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