Morning Musings: Late goals doom Blue Jackets in St. Louis

The Blue Jackets opened the season with three games in four days and suffered another setback Saturday night to cap the stretch, falling by a 5-2 score in St. Louis. The Blues scored three goals in the final 10 minutes to break a 2-2 tie and extend a tough start for Columbus. Vladimir Tarasenko had two goals to lead the way for St. Louis.

Game In Five Minutes

Three Trending Topics

1. It was pretty clear head coach Brad Larsen was not pleased with the Jackets' performance Friday night in the home opener vs. Tampa Bay, but he felt much different about this 5-2 loss than the last one.
   "There's lots of good stuff tonight -- lots of it," he said. "As far as the overall game, it was much better. Not perfect, but much better."
   It might be tough for fans to wrap their minds around it, but I think he was right. Columbus was much more on its game, keeping St. Louis to just four shots on goal in the first period and generally dominating the puck in the second. At 0-2 on the year, down 2-0 and facing a rested and ready Blues team in its season opener, the Blue Jackets could have folded in the second but instead got response goals from Gustav Nyquist and Sean Kuraly just 18 seconds apart.
   2. Having said that, it still wasn't enough to get a win. Ivan Barbashev's goal with 9:17 to go on a 4-on-2 gave St. Louis the lead for good, and Jake Neighbours' goal 20 seconds later off another turnover was a killer. While Columbus did a lot of good things, the sloppiness in their own zone at times was hard to overcome -- and frustrating to the head coach.
   "You hate to see you give it away," Larsen said. "You want the teams to have to earn it against you. If they're gonna get it, make them earn it. That's a heck of a hockey team over there, but it's just unfortunate that we are giving some stuff that I don't think we need to be giving."
   3. Larsen spoke before the year often about how the team would have to up its defensive game, saying the Jackets had to get back into the green in goal differential. Instead, three games in, Columbus has been outscored by a 14-5 margin. Tweaks were made to the team's defensive structure to try to help the Jackets keep the puck out of their own net, but it looks like the team is still in the midst of an adjustment period. Columbus has played three games thus far, but it has to be concerning the Jackets have been out-attempted 192-118 at 5-on-5 and are 31st in the league thus far with an expected goals percentage of just 38.66 at 5-on-5.
   "They're a good team, but most of the stuff they got tonight was off mistakes we made," Kuraly said. "Those are things we're going to have to clean up because we don't to be on this side of the game any longer."

Quote Of The Game

"I think you saw an example of what this team can be for spurts tonight. It was one of the first times we kind of got a little bit of everybody on the same page and everybody together and playing our systems and things we've been working on and talking about and watching on video. So yeah, there were spurts tonight of the way we want to play and the way we can play." -- Kuraly

Nerd Stuff

• Nyquist now has two goals in as many games.
• Gaudreau's assist on the Nyquist goal was his 400th helper in the NHL.
• Erik Gudbranson's secondary assist on Nyquist's goal was his second helper in as many nights.
• Mathieu Olivier had the primary assist on Kuraly's goal for his first CBJ point.
• Zach Werenski led the Jackets with nine shot attempts, five on target.
• Boone Jenner won 14 of 18 draws, and the Blue Jackets were 31-23 in the circle, a success rate of 57 percent.
• Columbus was 0-for-2 on the power play and is now scoreless on eight attempts so far this season.
• On the analytics front, Natural Stat Trick had St. Louis with a 2.94-1.89 edge in expected goals in all situations. At 5-on-5, the Bolts had a 2.29-1.80 advantage.

Being Social

It was a big sports day in Ohio, with the Cleveland Guardians earning a walkoff win to take the lead in their playoff series against the New York Yankees.

Meanwhile, Blue Jackets fans from around the world checked in tonight.