It’s strange how the flow of a game influences how you feel about it. The Jackets lost 3-2 to the Kings in overtime tonight, while being nearly doubled up in shots (41-23 per NHL.com) and shot attempts (61-36 per War-On-Ice.com), and it was a huge letdown. In most cases, fans would be happy to have stolen a point. I’d be ecstatic with a point were it the CBJ scoring late to send it to OT. Instead, former Jacket Jeff Carter scored at the 18:33 mark of the 3rd period to send it to an extra session. Then, Alec Martinez put the biscuit past Curtis McElhinney for the Kings win. Note I said Curtis McElhinney. Le sigh.
Good: Sergei Bobrovsky
He was a monster for about 54 minutes tonight. He made three stops that were just fantastic. He robbed Dustin Brown, then made the ridiculous double save on Tyler Toffoli (currently tied for 15th in the NHL in goals). The sneaky good stop though was this one on Jamie McBain.
Doesn’t look like much there, but to get set that quickly from out of the net, and make that shoulder save is not easy. The reverse angle (unfortunately not in the embedded video) shows just how quickly he threw that shoulder up to make that stop. In total Bob stopped 33 of the 34 shots he faced, only beaten on a very screened shot that went bar and in.
Bad: Sergei Bobrovsky
You may have noticed the part above about Curtis McElhinney, and that Bob played an amazing 54 minutes. That is because he got hurt. Details are sketchy as of this going live, but you have to imagine it’s not ideal. Hockey players don’t generally leave one goal games due to injury with five minutes left, and that goes doubly true for goalies. CMac made a couple of saves in relief, and you can’t fault him too much for either goal, but it’s not out of the question that Bob could have made one or both of those stops. Given how he’d been playing so far tonight, I’d be more surprised if both of them would have beaten him.
Good (or Bad depending on your perspective): Drew Doughty
Drew Doughty is probably my favorite non-Jackets player in all of hockey. He’s just so smooth, so in control. The guy runs the game in all three zones every time he is on the ice. He’s so active in every way. He forces the play defensively, and forces his opponents offensively, with and without the puck. His night doesn’t look all that spectacular on the scoresheet (zero points, 3 shots, +1), but if he logged 30:59 in ice time. And that’s with the Kings dressing 7 defensemen. He was also +15 in Corsi, including a +8 in the 3rd period while the Kings were pressing to even up the game. I mentioned control earlier, but that is the word that comes to mind watching him. He just controls the game, and I really do relish every opportunity I can to see him play.
Quote of the Night: John Tortorella
“I don’t have a word to describe us tonight and it knocks me back because of how well we played in Philly. I don’t know what happens to us in our home building. But that was men against boys tonight. We should be embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. Obviously I’m not doing a good enough job to get this team ready – I’m totally embarrassed by the way the team played.”
Palate Cleanser
To rinse the bad taste of that game out of your mouth, let’s rewatch Bob’s double stop on Toffoli.
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