Postgame Analysis: Blue Jackets need to find goals after Game 4 loss

However you look at Game 4 of the Blue Jackets' series vs. Tampa Bay on Monday probably depends on your point of view.

If you're a glass half full person, you can see Columbus came back from a rough Game 3 by playing its best game of the series.

If you're a glass half empty person, you'll focus more on the reality that it wasn't enough. A four-minute lapse to start the second period gave Tampa Bay two goals, and that was too high of a mountain for the Blue Jackets to overcome in a 2-1 loss that put the Blue Jackets on the brink of elimination.

That happens in hockey -- certainly, teams win games where they get outshot and outchanced all the time, and controlling more of the puck doesn't always guarantee a victory -- but the Blue Jackets are not in a position where a moral victory will go very far now that the season has been pushed into do-or-die status.

And it's gotten there because Columbus just hasn't been able to find enough goals to complement the continued outstanding play of Joonas Korpisalo. This was never purported to be the most skilled lineup in the NHL -- there's plenty there, but this is also a team that finished near the bottom of the league in goal-scoring this year -- but the reality is the Blue Jackets need more goals if they're going to come back in this series.

Columbus has just eight in the series, two per game, a number that is even less prolific than it sounds after Game 1 went five overtimes. It's a small sample size, of course, but after the two goals by Oliver Bjorkstrand, six players have single tallies -- Alex Wennberg, Cam Atkinson, Eric Robinson, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Riley Nash and Ryan Murray.

That leaves Seth Jones and Zach Werenski scoreless, and the same for Nick Foligno and Boone Jenner. Alexandre Texier has been noticeable on the first line but is yet to tally, while Gus Nyquist has also been kept off the scoresheet.

When asked if he needs more offensively from his top guys, head coach John Tortorella merely replied with one word: "More."

At the same time, the head coach cautioned the team can't get too frustrated by its inability to get the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy to this point.

"We can't get frustrated," he said. "We're still in a series. ... We just have to get ready for our next game. We need to make a couple more big offensive plays to score some goals. There's no sense in being frustrated. We just get ready for our next game."

Dubois agreed that frustration is not on the table, especially since Columbus did have some looks. Bjorkstrand's waved-off goal in the opening two minutes stands at the forefront of that, but the reality remains it was offside upon review.

There were other opportunities, including his breakaway wrist shot that hit the outside of the post and caromed away harmlessly, but in the end it just wasn't quite enough.

"I think that as long as you're getting chances, you're doing something right," Dubois said. "Obviously if you're getting chances and you're not scoring and you're losing games, that's really frustrating, but I think if we keep getting chances and we keep getting pucks to the net like Cam said into the blue, I like our odds to get a couple more goals."

A better effort: Back to the glass half full perspective. The Blue Jackets had been outshot pretty significantly through the first three games of the series, but this was a much better effort.

Columbus allowed the Lightning just one shot on goal and three shot attempts in the first 10 minutes of the game, and unlike in Game 3, when Tortorella said the team hit the wall, the Blue Jackets continued to play a strong defensive game and saw a lot more of the puck than the previous three contests.

The forecheck was able to get really cycling a few times, with a handful of long shifts in the Tampa Bay zone out of multiple lines. Shots on goal for the game were 29-22 in favor of the Blue Jackets, including a 24-16 edge at 5-on-5. Columbus also had a 20-13 edge in scoring chances at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick.

"I thought we did some pretty good things," Atkinson said. "Overall I thought we played a pretty solid game. It's just one of those things that (you) turn the page, look at the positives and be ready to go in a couple of days for a do-or-die game."

Tampa's secret weapon: Before the series, Columbus fans likely didn't know a ton about Yanni Gourde, Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman -- at least when it came to their impact on the Lightning.

Gourde was on the Bolts a season ago during the Jackets' playoff sweep, but Goodrow and Coleman are more recent additions. Coleman had been a solid player in the Metropolitan Division the past few years with New Jersey, while Goodrow was plying his trade in San Jose, but both were brought in by the Lightning in an effort to provide a bit of a different look on the team this postseason.

That look? A little sandpaper, a little skill and a lot of effort. So far this series, those moves have paid off as that trio has been on the ice for three goals, including both Tampa tallies in Game 4.

So far, all three of those forwards have an expected goals percentage of above 75 percent in favor of Tampa Bay when they are on the ice at 5-on-5, and they've been a handful for whichever forward line and defensive pair they've been matched up against. On Monday, that meant the line of Foligno, Jenner and Atkinson, which was on the ice for the tallies scored by Goodrow and Gourde.

"They're like gnats," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said of the trio. "I feel like they're always just buzzing around, and you try to knock them away and they won't leave."

Add in the improved play of Vasilevskiy -- who had a .856 save percentage last year but is at .939 this year -- and you can see why it's a different story this time around.