As the Blue Jackets move into the home stretch of the season, their ace in the hole might just be Nationwide Arena.
Columbus holds the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference with 18 games to play, and the good news is 11 of those – including a four-game homestand that starts tonight vs. Vegas – remaining battles will be home contests.
And the confines of Nationwide Arena have been friendly to the home team, as the Blue Jackets are 19-4-4 in their last 27 home games. On the season, Columbus’ 4.07 goals per game at home lead the NHL as well.
As the Blue Jackets returned home from Tuesday’s 5-3 loss vs. New Jersey, their thoughts immediately reset to getting back to Nationwide Arena and trying to get back to their winning ways.
“We have a few games at home now, so we’ll learn from this,” captain Boone Jenner said after the setback in Newark. “We have a big game Thursday at home, and a little stretch at home where we have to raise our level and take care of business at home. So I'm looking forward to it.”
The Blue Jackets had a golden opportunity to pull away a bit from the teams chasing them in the wild card standings and get within two points of the Devils with a win in New Jersey, but unfortunately, a tough start was too much to overcome. New Jersey led 3-0 after one period and the Blue Jackets couldn’t track them down despite their best efforts, as Columbus cut the deficit to 3-2 in the second before goals late in that period and early in the third let the Devils finish off their win.
It was the third straight CBJ loss in which the team gave up a goal in the first seven minutes, so getting off to a good start against the division-leading Golden Knights will be paramount.
“We just have to tighten up early,” head coach Dean Evason said. “I think we’re pushing. Obviously, we want to be aggressive. We want to get in on the forecheck and all that good stuff, but we have to keep it out of the net first to give ourselves a chance to score the goals that we do.”
No matter what happened, good or bad, can’t have an impact on what’s next right now for the Blue Jackets, as they have to attack each game as its own entity and keep adding to their bank of points. That’s what Mathieu Olivier had in mind in the postgame locker room in New Jersey when he said the Jackets have to take what they can from the loss and move on to tonight’s game.
“Focus on the next one,” Olivier said. “We’re in a playoff race here. We had an opportunity to do some damage in the standings tonight. We didn’t. Obviously, I won’t say, ‘Who cares?’ but we’ll analyze it, shake it off and get back to it in the next game. That’s all we can do.”
Know The Foe: Vegas Golden Knights
Head coach: Bruce Cassidy (Third season)
Team stats: Goals per game: 3.34 (5th) | Scoring defense: 2.73 (9th) | PP: 29.0 percent (2nd) | PK: 76.2 percent (23rd)
The narrative: The 2023 Stanley Cup champs are seemingly in the mix for a championship every year, and they’re on the way to their seventh playoff appearance in eight seasons of existence. The Golden Knights failed to repeat a season ago, losing in the first round to Dallas, but will be a hard out in the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a veteran coach and an experienced roster – of the team’s top 15 scorers, 14 are age 26 or older – that knows how to win in the postseason.
Team leaders: Jack Eichel might be having the best season of his decorated career, as the 28-year-old center is eighth in the NHL in scoring with a 20-58-78 line as well as a plus-28 rating on the season. Mark Stone adds 17 goals and 57 points in 50 games, while Tomas Hertl has a team-high 27 goals among his 52 points. Top defenseman Shea Theodore has a 7-41-48 line but is out with an injury suffered at the 4 Nations Face-Off, while Pavel Dorofeyev has 25 tallies on the season.
Adin Hill leads the charge in net and is 23-11-4 with a 2.60 GAA and .904 save percentage, while Ilya Samsonov has a 2.81 GAA and .889 save percentage while going 15-8-3.
What's new: The Golden Knights were a certified wagon through 40 games, posting a 28-9-3 record and leading the NHL in points percentage. They hit a bit of a hiccup in January and early February with a 3-8-3 mark, but the Golden Knights have gone 7-2-1 in the last 10 even with the Theodore injury. Hertl has led the charge, as his 16 goals in 22 games since Jan. 12 are second in the league. While Vegas didn’t make its usual huge splash at the deadline, it did reacquire original Golden Knight Reilly Smith from the Rangers to bolster the forward unit after signing Brandon Saad in January.
Trending: Columbus posted a 2-1 overtime win Jan. 30 and now leads the all-time series 7-5-1, including a 4-1-1 mark in Nationwide Arena.
Former CBJ: Karlsson has a 7-11-18 line in 38 games on the season but has been on injured reserve since Jan. 20 with a lower body injury, though he seems close to a return, while Saad has 4-2-6 in 12 games since joining the squad.
