All good things come to an end, and so it was for the Blue Jackets on Monday night.
One game after their six-game winning streak came to a close with a shootout loss against the Rangers, the Blue Jackets saw their seven-game point streak end on Long Island with a 3-1 loss to the Islanders.
After Columbus took a first-period lead on a power-play goal by Kent Johnson, the game changed in the first six minutes of the second stanza thanks to even-strength, shorthanded and power-play goals for New York. From there, a heavy Islanders team kept the Blue Jackets attack at bay, and head coach Dean Evason said his team just didn’t have its usual energy as it tried to come back.
“We didn’t have any pop in tonight’s hockey game,” Evason said. “We were slow in all areas. We thought slow, we skated slow, we passed slow. We haven’t done that lately. We’ve played the game fast – we've thought it fast, we got pucks going so that we could move our feet. Tonight, it looked like we were stuck in a bit of mud, and consequently we got the result we did not want.”
As much as coaches don’t want them to, those games happen occasionally in the NHL, and the key once they do is to bounce back as quickly as possible. That opportunity comes tonight against a Toronto team that has won eight of its last 11, so things won’t come easily.
The Blue Jackets are still 10-3-2 in their last 15, so it’s fair to say this is a matchup of two of the hotter teams in the NHL, placing fourth (Columbus) and tied for seventh (Toronto) in the NHL in points since Dec. 19.
“You know, we’ve been on a good stretch here so far getting some results, and it’s just one bad game,” Olivier said. “You can’t dwell on it too much. Obviously we’ll analyze it and see what went wrong on our part, but we have to just keep moving forward here. We have a job to do in Toronto.”
Offense hasn’t been much of a problem for the Blue Jackets throughout this season, but Columbus has scored just one goal so far in the first two games of its road trip. It’s a short blip of the season, but the Blue Jackets also know it will be harder to find offensive chances as the game tightens and teams battle for a playoff spot.
The onus is on them to take advantage of their looks and keep the red lights flashing behind opposing goalies.
“We have been getting some opportunities,” Adam Fantilli said. “We just have to capitalize on them. It’s the NHL. You can’t get those opportunities and not get (goals) and just say, ‘Oh, next time.’ Eventually you have to bear down on them. I’m staring right in the mirror at myself; I had a few tonight that I should have beared down on, and they just didn’t go in.”
Know The Foe: Toronto Maple Leafs
Head coach: Craig Berube (First season)
Team stats: Goals per game: 3.17 (11th) | Scoring defense: 2.85 (12th) | PP: 22.2 percent (13th) | PK: 81.0 percent (12th)
The narrative: One season after Toronto won a postseason series for the first time in two decades, heartbreak returned to the city last year as the Leafs lost in overtime of Game 7 of the first round vs. Longtime nemesis Boston. The most talked about team in hockey made some changes – in particular, the hiring of Stanley Cup-winning coach Berube – but it’s still a squad built around the high-powered forward quartet of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitchell Marner and John Tavares.
Team leaders: Those are the team’s top four scorers on the season, though Tavares (20-22-42) is on injured reserve with a lower body injury. Marner is second in the NHL in assists and fourth in points this season with a 15-52-67 line and is tied for the league lead in scoring with 29 points in 19 games since Dec. 13. Nylander’s 28 goals among 49 points are second in the NHL, while Matthews got off to a slow start after last year’s 69-goal campaign and has battled injuries but still has a 19-18-37 line in 33 games including nine goals in his last 10 games. Matthew Knies adds 18 tallies on the year.
In net, Joseph Woll has rebounded from an early-season injury and leads the team with 24 starts, going 17-8-0 with a 2.69 GAA and .907 save percentage. Anthony Stolarz held down the fort early but is out with a knee injury, leaving Dennis Hildeby (3-2-0, 3.18, .884) as the backup.
What's new: The Maple Leafs have been a fan of streaks recently, winning five straight from Dec. 31-Jan. 7, dropping three in a row, and then winning the last three after Monday night’s 5-3 win over Tampa Bay. The offense scored just four goals in the three losses, then has put the puck in the net 16 times over the last three victories. Marner has led the charge with seven points during the winning streak, while Nylander and Matthews each have five.
Trending: Columbus won two of the three matchups a season ago as well as the first meeting this season between the teams, a 6-2 final Oct. 22 in Nationwide Arena.
Former CBJ: The well-traveled Max Domi (3-14-17 in 40 games) is on his seventh NHL team but seems to have found a home in Toronto, where his dad is a Leafs legend, as he signed four-year deal with the squad in the offseason. Alex Nylander has played five games with his brother without a point and has been returned to the AHL.
