Well that was ugly. As I tweeted earlier, the Blue Jackets looked like an Eastern Conference team who had just played San Jose the previous night. For every stride our skaters took, the Ducks took two. Truly a disappointing performance for nearly everyone on the ice. While I’d love to pump up Hartnell’s performance for netting his first goal of the campaign and seemingly being the only Jacket that knew where to send the puck (5 shots out of the Jackets’ 17) he gave me a few genuine “what was he thinking” moments such as the tripping call in the 3rd period. I’m not entirely sure I’d even call it tripping but when you leave your feet in an attempt to hit someone who no longer possesses the puck, get ready for a 2 minute timeout. The most disappointing aspect of the game was that we never really tested a shaky-looking Gibson. While I don’t think he came into this game obsessing over his so far unimpressive numbers, he clearly didn’t seem to develop a rhythm until late in the game. I can’t help but feel if we’d have thrown some more garbage at him, we could have snuck in a dirty goal or two. Enough complaining let’s see who the NHL dubbed the three stars of this mess:
3rd Star: Corey Perry
Corey Perry had shots. Corey Perry had an assist. Corey Perry opened the scoring to get things kicked off with a gorgeous sneak across the crease followed by a simple back hand. Solid game for one of the league’s elite. He earned his star tonight.
2nd Star: Devante Smith-Pelly
Halfway through the 2nd period I had already dubbed Smith-Pelly my #1 star of the game. He successfully got into the Jackets’ heads and was impacting play every time he was on the ice. Sure he may not have had 2 points like the number one star tonight but he was did a great job of acquiring the Jackets’ attention when it would have been better served to be paying attention to the puck.
1st Star: Sami Vatanen
For many writers an assist and the GWG is all they need to anoint someone the number one star of the game and in most cases that’s legit but as I said above, I’d anoint Smith-Pelly with that tonight. Nothing against Vatanen or his impressive performance tonight, I just disagree in this instance.
Game in One Picture
Stud: Bobrovsky
His performance tonight was pretty non-spectacular but it wasn’t horrible either. He earns stud for the way he came off the ice congratulating and trying to lift the spirits of his teammates. It takes a real team guy to do that after he watched them flounder to find the opposing team’s net for 60 minutes. That impressed me.
Duds: Boll and Cracknell
You get two tonight. The first one is my fault. I made the mistake of mentioning today at lunch that Boll’s shown a little bit more promise this season by being a more complete player. Tonight he took a terrible roughing penalty when he decided to ride Vatanen into the net and his fight at the end of the 3rd was an embarrassment. What purpose did that serve? It wasn’t standing up for a teammate, there was no egregious hit on him by Stoner that needed dealt with, the game was over. It was time to ride out the rest of regulation, call it a night and start prepping for LA.
Regarding Cracknell: he’s not that good. The only thing I want on the ice less than Cracknell is a Cracknell with a diminished ability to skate. It was clear that he wasn’t at 100% after going into the boards awkwardly. Richards and staff should have had him hit the shower and start icing that ankle up. While some may have been impressed at him making his way back to the ice, I found it as senseless as Boll’s fight.
With I could leave y’all with a more optimistic perspective of that game but it was a stinker, plain and simple. Here’s to hoping the team makes the most of their time off between now and Sunday’s matinee puck drop in LA. Go Jackets!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
