The uneven play of the Columbus Blue Jackets continued Friday night as the team took a 3-1 lead at Ottawa only to fall by a 5-4 score.
The Jackets malaise continued as the team has won just two of its last seven as injuries and inconsistent play have mounted.
So what was the vibe as the Jackets spoke about the game afterward?
John Tortorella
On the team responding to adversity: "We've gotta get some skin on ourselves here now. You go through some of this stuff during the year, and you find out about people when you ... we've been trying to gain traction here for a few weeks now. We've found a way to scrap to get some points when we played a lousy game against Boston. We get five out of six and rebound a little bit. But we're certainly not at the level of the standard that we need to play at. It's easy to be good leaders and good players when things are going well. We're going to find out about some people here as we're trying to get some traction here now."
On if he's worried about the play of Sergei Bobrovsky, whose gaffe let Ottawa back in the game: "Sure. He falls into the same category as everybody. I have concerns about a lot of people as far as, it's not numbers, it's just the eyeball test as far as how they're playing. Sure, there's a concern about Bob."
On what Bobrovsky needs to do to right himself: "I'm not going to get into ripping on Bob. That's not what I'm saying. But Bob is in with a group of players. We have 20 players that play each and every night. Everybody is involved in this. So it's a situation where I'm anxious to see how guys handle themselves. And I think when you work through it, you scratch and claw and you try to find some traction, you become a better team when you need to be a good team at the end of the year if you have an opportunity to keep on playing. So this is all part of the National Hockey League. We have to handle ourselves the right way and try to find ourselves."
Seth Jones
On the game: "We were a little sloppy. You could see passes blowing up off each others' sticks and we just weren't sharp, and it showed. We played a really good second period. We kind of blew up there at the end of the second with a couple of mistakes, but it's kind of a weird game."
On where the team goes from here: "We've gotta do a better job of taking control. We can't be waiting around, waiting for them to make a move and us react. We have to take initiative and be a better team. It's as simple as that."
On the sloppiness of the game: "You hit the nail on the head there. We just turned pucks over. We're throwing pucks to the middle wen they don't need to be there. We're not playing a north game. Yeah, I don't really know what to say."
On where the team goes from here: "We just have to be smarter. We know how we have to play. We know what we have to do to be a good hockey team. We still believe in that in this room. We have to continue to play with confidence. We're in a little bit of a funk here have I have no doubt that the guys in this room will get it done."
Sonny Milano
On playing a simple game: "Yeah, pucks were flopping everywhere and we couldn't really hold on to pucks and make the simple plays. Obviously that was our game plan, but we didn't execute that."
