It wasn’t the sharpest game for the Blue Jackets.
There were plenty of defensive miscues and blown assignments, but timely scoring, great special teams play and some big saves from Joonas Korpisalo allowed the Columbus Blue Jackets to escape Florida with two points.
Here are tonight’s “3 Things”
Battle of the Stars
Aleksander Barkov is one of the best young players in the league; if he was in a bigger market, he would be a huge star.
Barkov went up against the Jackets' best players and got the better of them a few times. He took advantage of Cam Atkinson and Zach Werenski to create the Panthers' first goal, then took advantage of some miscommunication between Artemi Panarin and Anthony Duclair, getting himself completely wide open and scored the Panthers second goal. That said, all of the Jackets stars that were burned ended up making up for it. Panarin had a three point game, while both Atkinson and Werenski each had a goal and an assist. Atkinson came up big with the game-winning goal.
In the NHL, star players need to turn in star performances for teams to contend, and the Blue Jackets got just that tonight.
Bad Defense
The Jackets as a whole were pretty bad defensively tonight. Not just in allowing four goals, but they gave up a ton of high quality chances.
The four goals weren't indicative of Korpisalo's play in net. There were defensive miscues from players who normally don’t make those mistakes – Columbus was outshot 41-32 and had a stretch in the second period where they went 13:24 between shots. For a team with this much offensive talent that should not happen.
Florida dominated the latter two thirds of this game. The Jackets started well, but a late goal with seconds left in the first swung things in Florida’s favor. The Jackets were fortunate this game came against a team like Florida. Had this come against a more complete team like Washington or Tampa Bay, the Jackets would have been toast.
New-Look Power Play
The Jackets unveiled their new top power play unit with John Tortorella inserting Duclair. The move paid dividends immediately.
With the Jackets in the midst of that disastrous second period, Atkinson was able to draw a penalty and sent that top unit to the ice. Panarin slid a pass across to Duclair who ripped one past James Reimer to get the Jackets back in the game. Werenski also scored on the power play as the Jackets converted twice on their three opportunities.
Bread to Duclair. Not a bigggg dealllll.#CBJ pic.twitter.com/c0rrdoBCBy
— 1st Ohio Battery (@1stOhioBattery) October 12, 2018
Florida also was doing something relatively new with their power play. Their top unit consisted of five forwards, no defensemen. Most teams nowadays do the four forward one defensemen set up, but Florida took it that one step further.
While it's still rare in hockey, it's not unprecedented. The OHL's Hamilton Bulldogs rode that strategy to a Memorial Cup, but Florida didn’t have success with it tonight. The Jackets kill was good, but Florida (and more teams without a Werenski or Seth Jones type) should continue to experiment with the five-forwards power play setup.
