Well. The Jackets fell 5-0 at home on Black Friday to the Vancouver Canucks. It was a weird game. If you’re a possession stat person, the Jackets played well and competitively on paper. Take a look at this shot chart:
If you compare this to recent Jacket games, it’s the best the CBJ have done in hanging with an opponent and staying equal or better in offensive output – especially through the first two periods. But as Nick Foligno said in post-game interviews, the team doesn’t seem to have the confidence to survive getting scored against, and the goals against rained down in the third.
Let’s take a look at the three stars courtesy of NHL.com:
3rd Star: Nick Bonino. This is what happens when you have a pretty even game but then the score is so completely lopsided you have to think there’s no way you can vote in one of the hometown guys who just got shut out, I think. Because, OK, Bonino played well but he wasn’t even their best center in my opinion not even winning half his faceoffs. And yes, he had three assists, but the goals this evening seemed so flukey give me a Vrbata play over Bonino. But whatever. Who else are you going to pick?
2nd Star: Chris Higgins. Again. I feel like this is a choice that is made to honor rules of star voting. Higgins gets the game winner. Thus, a star is awarded. But again, who else do you pick? (OK, I promise, this is the last time I’ll use this phrase)
1st Star: Ryan Miller. This guy. What a journey, right? Leaves Buffalo. Goes to St. Louis, leaves unceremoniously and ends up in Vancouver and is now part of the winning ways this crew is building. Miller most certainly deserves this honor tonight. He stopped all 31 CBJ shots, gets the shut out and was the biggest piece of the puzzle in putting the cork in the bottle of the Jackets’ hopes. Big stops on Foligno, Jenner…and, back to Foligno’s quote mentioned earlier, the belief faded and the Jackets became the catnip that the Canucks toyed with for the final 20.
Game in One Picture
Stud. Derek Dorsett. Now now, bear with me. This is not some random fan-girl pandering. This is acknowledgement that I legitimately laughed out loud when he was tossed / self-ejected into the Blue Jackets bench. OF COURSE only Derek Dorsett would do something like that. The guy was always memorable on Nationwide ice and he did it again tonight. Let’s relive the moment in this great gif courtesy of @MyRegularFace. And seriously, this may have been the happiest Jackets fans were all night.
Dud. Spitting in the face of analytics. Tonight had the Jackets putting up some of the best possession stats they had in a while. As these data points are simply to be used as probability measures, it seemed that the CBJ might have a good shot at winning. But the third period meltdown assured everyone that even with winning the possession battle, both at All strengths and Even strengths, and “winning” the penalty battle (2 CBJ penalties to 3 for the Canucks) wasn’t enough. Finding a new way to lose was a frustrating outcome of tonight’s game.
There’s not a lot of time to wallow in this one (hopefully). The Jackets are en route to Nashville tonight. They face off against a good Predators team and simply have to find a way to win. There’s no two ways about it – regardless of the hand that has been dealt, these are the players that can play, so onward we go.
Carry the Flag!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
