For the Blue Jackets, this season was about making the next step after falling just short of the playoffs a year ago.
Rick Bowness thinks he knows why they did not.
The CBJ head coach, overcome by emotion, couldn’t hold back after Tuesday night’s season-ending 2-1 loss vs. Washington at Nationwide Arena. His team’s failure to rise to the occasion, both in this game’s performance and in the Jackets’ 3-9-1 finish to the season, finally reached a boiling point.
“I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture,” Bowness said. “Losing is not important enough. It doesn’t bother them. How can you go out and play like that? I should have done this a month ago, but this is why we are where we are. This is why we’re out of the playoffs, that kind of effort.”
Tuesday night’s game was devoid of bigger meaning in the standings, with both the Blue Jackets and Capitals eliminated from playoff contention Monday night when Philadelphia clinched a spot, but the old saying goes you find out the most about people when no one is watching.
A full house of 18,224 was on hand at Nationwide Arena, but the greater hockey world had moved on to thinking about the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Tuesday night was about sending out the 25th season on a high note in front of the 15th sellout crowd of the season, but in the head coach’s eyes, the Blue Jackets fell short in that test.
Boone Jenner put Columbus ahead early in the second period, but Washington rallied with a goal later in the frame and scored the winner on the power play with 4:07 to go. In the end, Bowness didn’t care as much about the scoreboard as the lack of commitment from a team that finished the night with three hits and 23 giveaways.
The loss dropped the Blue Jackets to 0-5-1 in the last six home games.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “Inexcusable. If they’re not embarrassed by not only tonight, but by that (home record), they’re on the wrong team. They are. They gotta be embarrassed by that.”
It’s fair to wonder if these are the natural growing pains of a team trying to figure out how to win when the chips are down, or a team that is due for a significant shakeup in the offseason. It will be a crucial few months ahead for Columbus, which failed to qualify for the postseason for the sixth consecutive season.
The 19-3-4 start to Bowness’ tenure lifted the squad all the way from last in the Eastern Conference to a playoff position, but the end of the season showed just how much the squad has to learn about playing at the toughest time of the year. Bowness repeatedly challenged his team to up its level of play down the stretch knowing what was ahead, but the finish to the season will hang over everything.
“It’s definitely frustrating, and I think when you go back you can see how good of a team we are when we’re playing the team game,” Jenner said. “We can beat any team in the league, and we got away from it, and we couldn’t bring it back and we couldn’t get wins down the stretch when we needed them most.
“Bones talks about it gets harder, and we didn’t up our level of game. And other teams did.”
There are now going to be a bevy of questions heading into a critical offseason for general manager Don Waddell and the Blue Jackets, who have said they consider themselves contenders going forward as a young core continues to build. A cadre of free agents highlighted by Jenner, dependable center Charlie Coyle, midseason addition Mason Marchment and physical defenseman Erik Gudbranson will be in the spotlight, and the future of Bowness is a question, too.
Hired in January for the rest of the season to lift the team out of its doldrums, Bowness lit a spark under the team when he first took over, but when it mattered most, the Blue Jackets faltered.
“Because it got tough,” Bowness said. “Because it got hard. We talked about after the Olympic break, it’s gonna get harder. Everything is good as long as it’s going their way. Now it gets tough, we don’t want to battle back, and that’s what happened over the last couple of weeks. That’s all that’s happened.
“We’re gonna change that. If I'm back – and I don’t know if I’m back, Don and I will talk – we'll get to that. But man oh man, some of those guys are lucky the season is over and there’s no practices tomorrow and there’s no games.”
Bowness’ biggest issue was that the team didn’t seem to develop the same distaste for losing he’s acquired over more than four decades in the game as the longest-tenured head or assistant coach in league history.
The final 13 games will be a bitter lesson for the team whether he returns as head coach or not, and it could serve as a springboard for bigger things to come or a millstone signifying what needs to change. But in the end, when the temperature turned up the most, the Blue Jackets were the proverbial frog that didn’t realize it was being boiled under it was too late.
“I think it just goes to show how hard it is to get (into the playoffs) and how coming down the stretch here, that’s when your game has to elevate and that’s when you have to be at the top of your game,” forward Cole Sillinger said. “And I think for us, it wasn’t the case. We let it slip, and for whatever reason, we couldn’t get it back, and that’s the most frustrating part.”
