Goal Breakdowns @ St. Louis 4/5

Tough loss for the Blue Jackets last night. Tough loss indeed. With Columbus and St. Louis both coming off hard fought victories the night before, and flying into St. Louis late Thursday, the usual excuses for a road back to back just don’t apply. Fortunately, the Blue Jackets continued their run of showing up to play. They pretty much out everything-ed the Blues, from shots on goal (27 to 19) to faceoffs (33 to 26). Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough. Jake Allen came up huge and David Backes scored a ridiculous game winning goal to get the Blues the 4 point win. It’s going to be tough sledding for the Jackets to make the playoffs (especially considering Detroit’s win later last night), but they aren’t done yet. Now onto the review of all three goals (yes, three).

1-0 St. Louis, 15:58 2nd Period – Chris Stewart from Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester

While the broadcasters put this goal squarely on Nikita Nikitin, his overpursuit on Pietrangelo was only a small part of the problem. Nikitin goes too hard, but Artem Anisimov still has Patrick Berglund, RJ Umberger has the passing lane to the point, and Dalton Prout still has Stewart. Wait, he doesn’t. Instead of continuing to cover his man in front of the net, he leaves him to front Pietrangelo. In many cases, it would be a very wise idea to front Pietrangelo when he has the puck in space. However, he’s behind the net. Let him stay back there and stick with your guy in front. What is Pietrangelo going to do? He can’t pass to Berglund, he has no direct passing lane to the point, Nikitin is on his back shoulder so he can’t stop, and if he cuts to the net Niktin has the angle on him, he’d be within Sergei Bobrovsky‘s pokecheck range, and his only shot option would be the backhand. Dalton, next time just stick with your man.

1-1 Tie, 18:36 2nd Period – Artem Anisimov from Marian Gaborik and Vinny Prospal

Lots of great work on this goal by ex-Rangers. Vinny goes hard to the net bringing defenders with him. Gaborik makes a great hustle play to get the puck to Anisimov, taking a hit in the process (not all Euro snipers are soft), the goes hard to the net as well. A goal like this is one of the few times where you can actually visibly see the extra space a star player makes for his teammates. Barret Jackman is so worried about Gaborik, he takes one stride too many with him, even though he was already covered by Stewart. This gives Anisimov enough space to walk out and find Allen’s five hole. Great effort by all three players, heady play by Anisimov, and a solid finish.

2-1 St. Louis, 18:45 2nd Period – David Backes from Jaden Schwartz and Alex Steen

Ignoring the turnover leading to the rush, this goal is really not on any of the defending Blue Jackets players. James Wisniewski plays the rush perfectly, as he has great gap control that doesn’t allow Steen to have a shooting lane, and doesn’t allow him a clean pass to either Backes or Schwartz. Adrian Aucoin plays it well too, as he maintains fine space and position on Backes and Schwartz (who are far too close together, one of them should have dropped to trail while the other crashed the net). Brandon Dubinsky provides great back pressure, which means Steen can’t stop to allow a trailer to catch up, or cut to the middle for a shot. Steen has two options here: carry the puck into the corner/around the net and try and hit a trailing defenseman, or force a pass to the middle. He chooses option #2, Schwartz doesn’t handle it cleanly, Backes takes a spill, but somehow the puck ends up on his stick anyway. Backes just throws the puck on net, and it somehow sneaks through Bobrovsky. It was a great shot from Backes, but I can’t help but feel like Bob could have had that one. Sometimes the bounces just don’t go your way.

Now I’m not going to recount Berglund’s “goal” as it a) shouldn’t have counted, b) involves nothing beyond a bad bounce, and c) was irrelevant to the outcome. To me, this is just another one goal game for the Jackets. While a tough pill to swallow, we’re in April now, watching tough, hard fought Blue Jackets games that actually matter. This has only really ever happened once before. Whether this team pulls off the playoffs or not, the next few weeks will be one hell of a ride.