Well, it had to happen some time. Last night we saw the boys in union blue turn in a lackluster performance in Nashville and end their franchise record 12-game point streak. Bizarrely, after setting a new record for 3 goals in just over a minute’s time the previous night, the Jackets were on the receiving end of a “blink and you missed it” scoring flurry that put the game away early in the first period.
The game seemed to start ok. The team looked slow but there was no cause for panic when Taylor Beck scored his (you guessed it) first career goal against Bobrovsky in net. Then Shea Weber scored. RJ Umberger would knock in an ugly ugly goal to get Columbus on the board but then Legwand would net one against us followed by a Matt Halischuck score and it was time to panic. The Jackets were down by three goals thanks to a shaky performance from Bob and absolutely abysmal play by our defense.
Steve Mason was brought in as relief for Bob, and provided a strong performance after almost a full month on the bench. But after a nasty shot on Artem Anisimov that left him bloodied, and a Mike Fisher goalie interference call that gave Columbus a 5-3 power play that we could do nothing with, everyone seemed to pack it in for the night.
The second period seemed to bring out a Blue Jackets team that was a bit more awake, and after that first period, Columbus would out shoot Nashville 16-8. Artem Anisimov added a second goal to the Jackets’ tally but we never seemed to find the sustained pressure that we needed to make any real push. The game – and the point streak – ended in regulation with a rowdy Nashville crowd taking the two points.
The armchair coachess were everywhere questioning Coach Todd Richards’ decision to ride the hot goalie for so long. I’m on record having said that I would have split the back to back games between our two netminders, but, as painful as tonight was, it was an important message. The team has been long excused for winning due to Bobrovsky’s strong performance. Prior to last night, the team had two games where we scored a total of eight points and seemed to be demonstrating that our offense and defense were stepping up. Last night, we couldn’t provide a balanced game at all and we proved the critics right – if Bob fails, we fail. Yes I’m over simplifying but just as a goalie needs to give a team a chance to win, so too do the other five guys on the ice. We fell down in all aspects of our game. And the defense just flat out didn’t show up.
I’m not hitting the panic button yet. A back to back series in a year with a schedule like this is bound to take a toll. Even the best teams will have an off night – remember that it was Colorado (!) that ended Chicago’s streak – but with 11 of the final 16 games on the road, how our boys respond in Vancouver will show us what we have. I believe that this team can return to their game we just now need to wait and see if they do. We need to remember that we’ve been viewed as such a poor team for so long that our opponents rarely took notice. As we become successful, teams are going to bring bigger and better play to our match ups. This is another step in becoming a legitimate contender – we too will need to raise our play more and more and opponents start to take us seriously just as we want them to.
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