PREVIEW: Blue Jackets face stiff test against Panthers
Columbus puts its winning run on the line against one of the NHL's best
By
Jeff Svoboda
BlueJackets.com
A seemingly endless parade of injuries meant players were shuttling back and forth from Cleveland to Columbus. At one point, half of the CBJ lineup was composed of players who had spent the majority of the season with the AHL's Monsters.
And yet, despite all odds, the Blue Jackets kept winning, at one point claiming points in 24 of 26 games. The run eventually petered out, but it was a true example of how a team going through adversity somehow rallied around itself and found plenty of success.
Things aren't quite that bad this year, but the Blue Jackets are in the midst of a red-hot run that has come with its fair share of ups and down as well. Regulars Alexandre Texier, Eric Robinson and Jake Bean are out, and Zach Werenski (day to day, upper body) now joins them after not making the trip, yet there seems to be a new hero each night as the team has won six of seven since the All-Star break.
GAMEDAY GUIDE: Werenski out with upper-body injury vs. Florida
Young forward Trey Fix-Wolanksy scored his first career goal in his NHL debut in the third period of the streak-starting win at Washington. Brendan Gaunce has come up from Cleveland and scored three times in seven games, all of them key goals in CBJ victories. And veteran goalie Jean-Francois Berube has emerged victorious in his first two starts in nearly four years.
"It's inevitable it's going to happen," head coach Brad Larsen said of injuries. "You like to space them out if you can, but the game decides who is hurt and who is out. You fight through it. You're going to have at times four or five different faces than maybe you are used to.
"It shows what (coach Trent Vogerhuber) and those guys are doing down there with Mark Letestu and the group and the goalie coach, what they are doing with those guys in Cleveland. They're doing a real good job for us and (The players) are coming up prepared and ready to go."
And if anything, it's provided a bit of a energy for the Blue Jackets in what can be the toughest time of year. February is known as the "dog days" in NHL circles, the time when the toils and travels of a long season start to add up but the excitement of the trade deadline and the final days of the playoff push have yet to take root.
But for Columbus, the new faces trying to establish themselves have brought in a bit of excitement during what normally is a tedious time.
"Guys feel that," Larsen said. "It's fun. Guys will block an extra shot or go an extra mile for those guys that come in. The players sense their excitement. They talk about the dog days in the NHL, but those guys that are coming up, there's no such thing as dog days, right? You're just excited to get in that jersey."
Add in strong performances by mainstays like Patrik Laine, Boone Jenner, Gustav Nyquist and Jakub Voracek and the Blue Jackets have seemingly found their games after things got rough in November and December.
"Losing is the worst, winning is awesome," defenseman Andrew Peeke said. "Finding that consistency I think was the biggest thing we had to go through on a night-by-night basis, how to play and be successful. I think the past few weeks we have really found that. Obviously it brings joy to the room, and the guys are buying in.
"It's an exciting time. We're trying to make a push here and see where it takes us."
Know the Foe
If there's one foe the Blue Jackets know quite well this year, it's Florida, and it hasn't been an enjoyable set of meetings to this point. The Panthers made easy work of Columbus during the team's previous trip to Sunrise, posting a 9-2 victory on Jan. 15 that might not have even been that close in what might have been the CBJ's worst performance of the season. The Jackets were much better when Florida made a return trip to Nationwide Arena on Jan. 31, but the Panthers still pulled away to an 8-4 victory.
Those two games speak to the offensive firepower Florida possesses, as there's both high-end talent and depth options that can put the puck in the net. The point about depth was driven home in Columbus, as the Panthers' third line of Mason Marchment (2-4-6), Anton Lundell (0-5-5) and Sam Reinhart (3-1-4) led the way in that game.
On the whole, Florida has nine players with at least 10 goals and 12 players with at least 20 points. Add it all up and the team leads the NHL with 4.12 goals per game, which has the Panthers on pace to be the first NHL team since Pittsburgh in 1995-96 to average at least four goals per game. Perhaps even more impressive, the team has a goal-scoring advantage of 143-96 at 5-on-5, which helps make up for the fact the team is 15th in the NHL in power play (20.8 percent) and 19th in penalty kill (79.0 percent).
Jonathan Huberdeau leads the way on the scoring front with the winger boasting 55 assists on the season, 10 more than anyone else in the NHL. He adds 17 goals and has 72 points, third in the NHL behind the Edmonton duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Center Aleksandar Barkov is the top goal scorer with 23 on the year among his 45 points, good for 20th in the NHL, but it's the depth of scoring that makes Florida so hard to defend. Sam Bennett is next with 22 tallies, followed by former Blue Jacket Anthony Duclair (20), Reinhart (18), Huberdeau, Carter Verhaeghe (16), Aaron Ekblad (14), and finally Lundell and Marchment (11 apiece). Ekblad's plus-35 rating is also fourth in the NHL overall and tops among league defensemen.
In net, former CBJ goalie Sergei Bobrovsky places third among NHL goalies with at least 20 games played in goals saved above expected per 60 minutes per MoneyPuck.com, and overall he is 26-5-3 in 36 games/starts with a 2.58 GAA and .917 save percentage.
