The month of January hasn’t been too kind to the Jackets. It has been up and down all month. Seemingly alternating between wins and losses. Their game against the Islanders was no different. After good play at times, they broke down at the beginning of the third period and weren’t ever able to come back from it. These were highlights and lowlights of the game.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
The Good: Seth Jones
His play on the opening goal of the period should’ve resulted in some sort of medal. Holding and pinning the puck against the boards while the team was able to get a line change was huge. They were able to hem the Islanders into their own zone because of it. Nick Foligno ended up scoring off of a deflection and it made it seem like the Jackets were going to once again run away with a victory. That’s why they play three periods though and the Jackets weren’t willing to dictate the pace of the game after the first period.
The Bad: Almost everyone else on defense
While Ryan Murray got an assist on the first goal, the rest of the defense was abysmal. Other than Werenski and Jones, the rest of the pairs were under 50% CF. Surprisingly, the Jackets seem to be missing David Savard more than they anticipated. In years past, he was similarly porous in shot differential. Whether he has found the key to success or this is just an outlier season from him, they need him. Similarly, Prout and Harrington, while being serviceable don’t bring what Nutivaara does to the backend. He is an offensive threat when he has the puck despite not scoring much. He has puck moving ability that needs to be accounted for.
Just to illustrate how badly the defense played last night, here is the heat map of shots from last night. The results aren’t pretty.
[protected-iframe id=”744e35da2567f5b323fd42e18164bd74-114320562-70843398″ info=”http://embed.naturalstattrick.com/hm.php?season=20162017&game=20716″ ]The Ugly: Consistency
While it would be nice to win every game this year, the Jackets were never going to do that. What is disconcerting for some fans is the lack of consistency they are now seeing from night to night. Whether it is taking a period off every once in a while or just not playing up to their possible standards that period, they just haven’t been able to put it all together. Some of it is numbers evening out and some of it is the Jackets finally getting into the meat of the schedule.
The next few months are going to be hard and the All-Star game is coming at a great time for them. They need to get healthy and they need to figure out their game. A mid-season reset would be perfect for them.
Tweet of the Game:
We kinda need the #CBJ to do more of this… pic.twitter.com/dVX0u01fny
— CBJ Artillery (@CBJArtillery) January 25, 2017
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