The Columbus Blue Jackets stayed on the road Friday, for the second night in a row. This time they were at the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Blue Jackets had plenty of reason to come into Friday night's game with their heads held high. The last meeting between the two teams resulted in a 6-0 Columbus victory. Also, the club extended their record for most goals in a ten-game span in franchise history to 47, with a convincing 6-3 win Thursday night over the Eastern Conference-leading Florida Panthers. The win was their fourth straight win and ninth out of the last 11 games.
Carolina, the Metropolitan Division leaders, came in on a three-game win streak of their own.
The Jackets hit a wall, getting picked apart by the Canes to the tune of 4-0.
Here are three things from a rough night in Raleigh:
Berube Hung Out To Dry
J-F Berube stood strong as long as he could, but eventually, the Canes attack overwhelmed him. He faced 16 shots on goal in the first and 21 in the second for 37 total shots in the first two periods alone. Berube didn't allow a goal in the first period, and while he did let in two goals in the second, he went into the third period with a .945 SV%. At that point, he also had an expected goals against of four, thus only allowing half as many goals as he was expected to. He kept Columbus in striking distance even with their anemic offense that only had nine shots on goal up to that point in the game.
However, the pressure finally got to Berube. He gave up two goals in the first two minutes of the third period to put the Blue Jackets down 4-0. He finished out the game without allowing any additional goals, but the damage was already done. For the game, Berube saved 46 of 50 shots — a more-than-respectable .920 save percentage — but he was hung out to dry with very little help from his defense.
The only highlight for the defense was Vladislav Gavrikov's sacrificing himself to block the puck in the first period. Sadly, that toughness diminished as the game went on.
Special Team Blunders
The Jackets were second in the league on the power play in February, entering Raleigh with a 33% success rate, going 6-18. That's now 6 of 22, with the Blue Jackets going 0-4 Friday night and not registering a single shot on goal until the third of those four opportunities.
The penalty kill was marginally better, with Carolina going 1-for-4 on the man-advantage. Columbus entered the game seventh in the league in penalty killing for the most, stopping 90% of opposition power plays. The Hurricanes lone power play goal was only three seconds into the power play, with Tuevo Teravainen ripping a shot past Berube following a Carolina faceoff win.
Laine's Streak Ends
Patrik Laine came into Friday night's game with the longest active points streak in the NHL at 11 games. What's more is that it was the third longest point streak in Blue Jackets history. Perhaps the most impressive part of his streak was the fact that he had 21 points during those 11 games, just one point shy of averaging two points a game over the entire streak.
Laine's streak came to an abrupt end Friday night in the shutout loss. The entire Columbus offense was sluggish, to say the least, totaling just 19 shots for the night — half of which came in the third period after they were already down 4-0. Laine was no exception to these offensive struggles, not only failing to score, but also putting up only one shot the entire game.
