Odd-man rushes become a concern
The Blue Jackets started Wednesday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs intent on ending the onslaught of odd-man rushes against them.
Before the previous five games, coach John Tortorella noted, the Jackets had been one of the NHL’s best teams in that regard. Why so many lately?
“To me, it is concentration, reading the play,” Tortorella said. “We’ve had bad reads. We’ve been sloppy. That’s concentration. Quite honestly, (Monday) in Boston I thought we were paralyzed with the puck and we were paralyzed without the puck.”
Captain Nick Foligno said it’s a matter of Jackets forwards making “smarter” plays so they can back up the team’s defensemen, particularly “rovers” Zach Werenski and Seth Jones.
“Sometimes we don’t realize how mobile our defense is,” Foligno said. “A lot of teams don’t play like us where you have 2 ‘D’ sometimes in front of the net, depending on if Z and Jonesy are feeling it that night.
“We just have to understand we’re backing each other up … realize we’ve got to bail those guys out. We’re asking them to do a lot offensively for us. We have to bail them out defensively so they feel like they can jump up.”
Added wing Matt Calvert: “We’re giving up a lot of gradeA chances that we normally don’t do. … We’ve got to help out at forwards.”
Werenski injured
Werenski missed his first game of the season — his fifth in 113 career games — because of an upper-body injury. He’s day to day, Tortorella said. Gabriel Carlsson was recalled from minor-league Cleveland to take Werenski’s place in the lineup.
The injury appears to be one that Werenski, who has regularly sat out practices as “maintenance” days, has been dealing with for some time. Fellow defenseman Ryan Murray missed his 11th consecutive game because of an upper-body injury.
Korpisalo starts
Backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo, who played the third period of last week’s 7-2 loss to Edmonton, made his first start in nine games against the Maple Leafs. Sergei Bobrovsky is expected to be in net Thursday night at the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Top line targeted
Tortorella said the Bruins made sure to have the defensively skilled Patrice Bergeron and his line on the ice every shift the Jackets’ top line was out there, and he expects more teams to focus on shutting down Artemi Panarin, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Josh Anderson.
“We’re going to start playing against the best lines, so we’ve got to be on top of our game,” Anderson said.
“It’s part of maturity for those guys on the top line to just fight through it,” Tortorella added.
Toothless Jenner
Center Boone Jenner was missing his two front teeth, and another next to them, Wednesday after a puck struck him in the mouth during Monday’s game and knocked loose his bridge of implants. Jenner said he initially lost the teeth two years ago against the Capitals when teammate David Savard’s shot struck him.