Columbus has dominated its past three games in terms of 5-on-5 play, going 2-1-0 against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday, New York Islanders on Tuesday and Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday. The only issue is what happened against Toronto, when the Jackets despite outshooting the Maple Leafs by 29 to become just the second team in NHL history to post three straight games with at least 50 shots.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no team has ever strung together four games in a row with 50-plus shots - going back to 1955-56, when the stat was first tracked. The Blue Jackets would rather score more goals on less shots, if that were the case, but it hasn't been that way outside of just a few games this season.
Thus, they've begun to throw the puck at the net from every area and angle, hoping to create either fluky goals or good rebounds for teammates to clean up.
"You just try to keep coming in waves and figure, you know, 'One of these is going to go in sooner or later,'" said defenseman Jack Johnson, who scored a goal against Toronto. "Then one goes in, and you're like, 'Alright, let's do it again. Let's keep going.' It's a lot more tiring if you're not getting the shots and you're not getting any results, but if you're in the offensive zone and you're firing away, it's a lot more fun to play."
The Flyers have taken notice of the Blue Jackets' approach, which has led to Columbus outshooting its past seven opponents - including 283-173 in the past six games.
"We're not going to change anything," Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol said. "They're playing well. I watched parts of their last three games, and they're not just getting shots on goal. They're getting good scoring chances off of that. Our message doesn't change. We have to do the things that we're going to do well, and we're not going to get caught up in the shot clock. It's about us defending the right way and being strong in critical areas, and probably most importantly, when you win pucks you've got to do good things and get that puck up ice and hold that puck."
That's been a lot easier said than done against the Blue Jackets recently. They just don't have the wins to show for it.
"We're playing good hockey, but we're in a business of results right now," Jones said. "Enough with the moral victories and, 'Well, we outshot them but didn't get the win.' We're in this business to win, get two points every night. We just need to stay aggressive. The mentality that we have right now is we're outworking teams, and you can see it. So, that can't change."
Here are the projected lineups:
FLYERS
Forward lines
Claude Giroux - Sean Couturier - Travis Konecny
Jakub Voracek - Nolan Patrick - Wayne Simmonds
Michael Raffl - Scott Laughton - Jordan Weal
Jori Lehtera - Valtteri Filppula - Dale Weise
Defense pairings
Ivan Provorov - Shayne Gostisbehere
Robert Hagg - Andrew MacDonald
Brandon Manning - Radko Gudas
Goaltenders
Michal Neuvirth
Alex Lyon
Others: Taylor Leier, Mark Alt, Brian Elliott (lower body)
Injured reserve:None
BLUE JACKETS
Forwards
Artemi Panarin - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Cam Atkinson
Oliver Bjorkstrand - Alex Wennberg - Nick Foligno
Boone Jenner - Brandon Dubinsky - Josh Anderson
Matt Calvert - Lukas Sedlak - Jussi Jokinen
Defensemen
Zach Werenski - Seth Jones
Jack Johnson - Markus Nutivaara
Dean Kukan - David Savard
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Joonas Korpisalo
Others: Scott Harrington, Markus Hannikainen
Injured reserve: Ryan Murray (upper body), Sonny Milano (torn oblique)
