It begs the question: What happened?
A lot, it turns out. There might have been a season-saving meeting in Vancouver, though details on that are a bit murky. Just about everyone seems to have found their game at the right time. And the return of captain Nick Foligno to the team feels like just the boost the Jackets needed.
Let's take a moment, then, to look back at the crazy week-plus that was.
A dinner meeting: The Blue Jackets had the day off Friday in Vancouver after the Edmonton loss. Some players headed to the beautiful mountains just north of the city, while others stayed closer to the team hotel, some watching some March Madness basketball or checking out the local restaurant scene.
Columbus then held a spirited and energetic practice Saturday morning, but the real big moment might have come that evening. Head coach John Tortorella said after practice that day the team would have dinner and a beer that evening.
By the time the Jackets took the ice that night against Vancouver, they looked like a different team. Not many specifics from the dinner have come out -- "None of your business," Tortorella said when asked about it yesterday -- but some players said the team dinner got everyone on the same page.
"I think we talked among the group and tried figuring out what was going on," Cam Atkinson said. "There was a lot of open discussion and I think getting things off guys' chests. I think when you talk among the group and the players and really figure out what's going on, I think that's the biggest thing for us, and we turned the page."
"We had some honest discussion about where we are," Seth Jones added.
"Sometimes it's just some brutal honesty, and you get through it and you become a better player and a better pro and a better team," said Foligno, who wasn't with the team but was in contact with players. "I think you can just see it. We've become a team here, and that's really dangerous coming down the stretch."
Confidence is back:Meetings are great, but at some point you have to play better on the ice, and Columbus was struggling pretty badly by the time the Vancouver game came around.
The Blue Jackets had scored 22 goals over the previous 11 games, and that was inflated by a seven-goal outburst vs. Boston. The team just wasn't scoring, and it looked against Edmonton once the Jackets fell into a third-period hole that the team's top skill players were trying to make "hero" plays themselves by skating through the entire defense rather than working within the team concept.
Things, of course, took off from there. It started with a five-goal outburst against Vancouver, a struggling team that is out of the playoff race, which was followed by a four-goal showing vs. a stingy Islanders team. Next up was a 6-2 win over Montreal that put the Jackets back on the right side of the playoff bar, then there were two workmanlike wins over the weekend at Nashville and Buffalo.
You can follow the team's progression through a series of Tortorella quotes. Before the Vancouver game, he spoke at length with the media about how the Blue Jackets needed to stop worrying about expectations and just play, and he focused especially about how the team needed to see good performances like the Calgary loss turn into results.
"They have got to feel a result to not let their confidence waver, because that can go either way if we don't start getting results," he said. "We need to just find a way to play with confidence, release ourselves and play, and keep our game simple and get out and attack."
After the Vancouver game: "I think winning a game and scoring some goals and seeing some guys make some plays helped the confidence."
By the morning of the Montreal game: "The game is about the mind, not X's and O's. It's about the mind."
Clearly, the Jackets are now in a much better spot mentally, and the play has done nothing but improve from there.
Bobrovsky's big week:How does three shutouts and only four goals allowed in five games sound?
Pretty good, but the bigger deal for Bobrovsky might just be how much the goaltender seems to be enjoying himself right now.