The Blue Jackets have a Penguins problem.
And while the mindless conversation about whether or not they are "dictionary definition" rivals is bound to continue, there's no denying where each of them stand at the moment. Pittsburgh has shed its ugly start and has leap-frogged the Blue Jackets in the standings, while Columbus sits on the fringe of a tightly-contested race.
We also know the Penguins have knocked the Blue Jackets out of the Stanley Cup playoff twice, needing 11 combined games to do so. So as the NHL's regular season schedule winds down, the most intriguing (and potentially disastrous) scenario awaits the Blue Jackets: they will need to finally beat the Penguins in order to solidify their own playoff aspirations in 2019.
The Blue Jackets haven't beaten the Penguins in seven tries. It's been a while.
Pittsburgh has owned this matchup over the last two-plus seasons and it's wearing on both the Blue Jackets and their fans; the most recent example was seeing Columbus and its beefed-up, post-trade deadline lineup get clocked by a Penguins team with a beer league defense on home ice at Nationwide Arena. Oof.
They say the numbers never lie, but the calendar is also a damn good truth-teller: the Blue Jackets and Penguins meet twice over the next four days (Thursday at PPG Paints Arena, and Saturday at Nationwide Arena), and these two games are – without question or hyperbole – the two biggest games on Columbus' schedule. And, really, what better time than right now for the Blue Jackets to snap this perplexing run of futility against their chief rival?
| DATE (HOME/AWAY) | RESULT (REGULAR SEASON) |
|---|---|
| FEB. 26, 2019 (H) | PENGUINS 5, BLUE JACKETS 2 |
| NOV. 24, 2018 (A) | PENGUINS 4, BLUE JACKETS 2 |
| APR. 5, 2018 (H) | PENGUINS 5, BLUE JACKETS 4 (OT) |
| FEB. 18, 2018 (H) | PENGUINS 5, BLUE JACKETS 2 |
| DEC. 27, 2017 (A) | PENGUINS 5, BLUE JACKETS 4 (SO) |
| DEC. 21, 2017 (A) | PENGUINS 3, BLUE JACKETS 2 (SO) |
| APR. 4, 2017 (A) | PENGUINS 4, BLUE JACKETS 1 |
| FEB. 17, 2017 (H) | BLUE JACKETS 2, PENGUINS 1 (OT) |
You have to go all the way back to pre-trade deadline 2017 to find a Blue Jackets victory over the Penguins in the regular season. Ian Cole scored a goal in that game – as a member of the Penguins. William Karlsson had an assist for the Blue Jackets and Dalton Prout was a healthy scratch. It feels like another decade.
The Blue Jackets have one playoff win over Pittsburgh in this stretch, and it was a Game 4 win at Nationwide Arena on Apr. 18, 2017 to stave off a first-round sweep.
All of this is to say one thing: this two-game set coming up is a perfect opportunity to not only get two important wins (and four points) against a division opponent, but also to ditch this brutal stretch against the Penguins and get going in the right direction. We'll find out a lot about the Blue Jackets over the next few weeks, and how they fare in a home-and-home with Pittsburgh is a good start to that evaluation.
