Postgame Hat Trick: A tough loss in Edmonton

After Columbus' morning skate at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Thursday, there were generally positive vibes floating through the Blue Jackets' locker room.
Head coach John Tortorella said he knew the team wasn't always getting results, but after going 3-3-1 in a stretch against seven playoff teams -- and feeling like they could have won most of the losses -- he thought the team was close to a breakout.
"I have liked the way we have played here through a number of games here," he said. "I think we have found our way. I think we're playing the right way. Now we have to get the results."
Hours later, the vibe had taken a 180. After a
disjointed 4-1 loss at Edmonton
dropped the team on the wrong side of the playoff line, the Blue Jackets locker room had a somber feel.

"We have to figure out what is going wrong here," center Matt Duchene said. "I mean, I wish I had answers for you guys. I don't really know what to say."
Three observations from the loss follow.
1. Now what? So what ails the Blue Jackets? No one seems quite sure. Plenty of theories have been floated, some schematic, some more about the atmosphere around the team. Is it a failure to mesh for the pieces acquired at the trade deadline? Is the team playing tight? Are expectations crushing the team? Has it been bad luck or is something structurally wrong with the team?
After the game, responses varied. Some of the players feel panic setting in, as if the team isn't quite sure how to respond to its uneven play when compared against the high hopes felt after the trade deadline.
"I think right now unfortunately we're feeling the pressure throughout our entire lineup," Duchene said. "I think we are desperate right now, but it's freezing us. We have to be a little looser and more excited about what is at stake here rather than feel the weight of it. I feel like we have a piano on our back as a group."
"We are playing a little stiff, I would say," Seth Jones added. "Which, no one has the answer to that question as of why. I think guys are trying, but we are a little stiff."
But Tortorella wasn't quite buying it.
"I wish there was panic in their game because then we would have showed some desperation," he said. "I don't agree with that."
The fundamental question seems to be: Are the Blue Jackets trying too hard and thus handicapping themselves in that way, or are they simply not trying hard enough?
Whatever the answer is, it has to come fast, as Montreal now has a one-point advantage on the Blue Jackets for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
2. Offensive woes continue:Simply put, the team isn't getting enough offensively to win right now, and that is playing into the struggles.
Columbus has scored 18 goals in the last eight games, but take out the seven-goal explosion vs. Boston and that number drops to 11 in seven. In the last three games, Columbus has scored a total of four goals and gone 0-2-1 in the process.
While the team had 27 scoring chances against Calgary in a 4-2 loss Tuesday, the sheet won't show nearly as many against Edmonton. There was little flow offensively vs. Edmonton, which has one of the worst defenses in the league. Columbus had 19 shots on goal and 41 total shot attempts, while Edmonton had 22 and 59 according to the final stats.
"The hardest thing is we're not scoring, so we don't have that confidence that we can outscore a team and come back in a game," Duchene said. "We have to find that somewhere. I don't know how we do it, but we have to find it. It has to come ASAP. We don't have any time to mess around."
After Columbus had just four shots in the first period, Tortorella switched around some lines, including pairing Artemi Panarin with Duchene and Josh Anderson, but the team never found anything that worked offensively. Too many of the team's best looks were individual efforts without the puck support to find rebounds or follow-up chances.
"We need to see the puck go in," Jones said. "We've been hitting the post recently, and some of our great chances aren't going in. We have to find a way to put the puck in the net at the end of the day. That's all it is."
3. Need a bounce back:For a few weeks now, while the Blue Jackets have struggled to get momentum going as far as wins and losses, there has been a feeling around the team that it would come and Columbus would end up on the right side of the playoff bar for the third year in a row.
It has helped throughout that span that the Jackets have spent most of their time on the positive side of the line. But now, with eight games left, that margin of error is gone as Columbus must play catch-up with Montreal, which hopped the Blue Jackets with a Thursday night thrashing of the Islanders.
Any comfort derived from still holding a playoff spot over the last few weeks now has gone by the wayside.
"You look at (Edmonton) tonight and they're playing for nothing and we're playing for something, and it's not what it looks like," Jones said. "We have to find energy somewhere. Enough with the meetings, enough with the talk. We have to find a way to motivate ourselves and motivate yourself individually to be the best player you can be every night and the best player for this team."
If there's one thing Tortorella agreed with, it's that the time for chatter is over.
"We've talked enough," he said. "We just have to have some sort of sense of urgency to try to get back into this here (or) we have no chance."
But when presented with the thought some members of his team were lacking in either effort or heart, the coach disagreed.
"No," he said. "I just don't think we understand the level we have to play at right now."