If you listened to the rest of the league, the bye week is a Very Bad Idea. But the Blue Jackets have made it a habit this year to not listen to the rest of the league.
Since coming off their five day break, the Jackets have, in the words of John Tortorella, “played six of the their best periods of hockey” and the three most recent came against the New York Rangers in the second half of a back-to-back for Columbus. Cam Atkinson and Alexander Wennberg each had two goal nights, and Josh Anderson added one late, his third in two games, to secure a 5-2 win over the Rangers and leapfrog New York in the Metro standings. The Jackets played within themselves and weathered the storm through a few New York surges while continuing to find ways to get behind their opponent’s defense.
Let’s take a look at the superlatives.
The Good. Adapting.
Saturday the Jackets welcomed the Islanders to Nationwide and very visibly controlled play throughout the game. Once the team got to Madison Square Garden though, they knew it was going to be different. The Rangers have proven speed and were much more aggressive in clogging up the neutral zone compared to what the Jackets saw the night before. This time, the boys in union blue cracked their opponent in different ways. First, they capitalized even more on the odd-man rush and while the Rangers got more shots on net compared to the Islanders, the Jackets were effective in “protecting the blue” and forcing the shots from outside as this 5v5 shot map from hockeyviz.com exemplifies.
The Tweak. The Power Play.
Our own Jeremy Crowe first took notice of a slight adjustment to the top power play unit in Saturday’s game.
https://twitter.com/307x/status/835619958080036864
Sunday, with the same adjustment still in place, that unit scored. Tortorella has long eschewed the magic of the Jackets set up, he’ll deflect your questions with explanations of “nothing being secret in the league” and teams having the excellent ability to pre-scout all aspects of an opponent’s game and plan accordingly. But even if we subscribe to that way of thinking, he acknowledged post-game that a tweak that Brad Shaw has applied in these two games can be a boost to the players on the ice, “a little change like that helps the players and they get rewarded with a goal.”
The please stop protesting he’s actually good: Alex Wennberg.
We all know the narrative. Ryan Johansen is traded and now the Blue Jackets no longer have a number one center…something something…and Wennberg doesn’t shoot…something something…and he’s not even a playmaker.
But this seems ok.
Here is the full sequence on the Wennberg goal. Chaos all over the ice. Bjorkstrand in the middle holding steady. 3-1 #CBJ pic.twitter.com/HOZG342jzh
— Buckeye State Hockey (@BuckeyeStHockey) February 26, 2017
Oh. And compared to last season, Wennberg already has four more goals and eight more assists. With 22 regular season games left to play.
Tweet of the Game.
note: do not give Cam this much time
or do, whatever#CBJ https://t.co/SLEleiyf7B
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) February 27, 2017
No rest for this team. They headed to Montreal post-Rangers defeat, and will play the Habs Tuesday for three games in four days, putting them halfway through six in nine days. Whee hockey!
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