Tortorella’s goal: Get key players scoring

DENVER — The Blue Jackets had just beaten the New York Islanders on Dec. 14 and Nick Foligno, who notched the winner, was asked if he felt he had shed his scoring struggles with four goals in his past 10 games.

“Yeah, knock on wood,” Foligno replied, rapping his knuckles on his wooden locker stall.

Three weeks later, Foligno hasn’t scored since. The Jackets’ team captain has one point — an assist against Pittsburgh on Dec. 27 — in the past 10 games. Fellow forward Boone Jenner has four points (one goal, three assists) in the past 21 games, and his season goal total stands at four — or, half as many as Sonny Milano — after scoring 18 last season and 30 in 2015-16. Matt Calvert has four points the past 15 games, all assists.

The Jackets were shut out for the second time in three games on Thursday night, falling to the Colorado Avalanche 2-0 at the Pepsi Center. They have scored twice in that span — and those two goals, from Oliver Bjorkstrand, came in a span of 78 seconds.

“It is what it is. We have so many guys out. This is our team, and we’ve just got to keep on hoping that those guys get going,” coach John Tortorella said of his top players’ lack of offensive production. “It’s not about digging down into Cleveland and bringing people from there. These are good players we have here. We just have to hope that they get going — but also play with structure.

“It’s frustrating. In a game like this (at Colorado), if we could have maybe one or two of those guys going, who knows where it goes. But right now, that’s not happening.”

The Blue Jackets have been shut out three times this season, and have scored only one goal in regulation 14 other times. With injured forwards Cam Atkinson (foot), Alexander Wennberg (back) and Brandon Dubinsky (fractured orbital bone) expected to be out through the All-Star break at the end of the month, a “silver lining” is that the Jackets play only 10 games in January, Tortorella said before Thursday’s game.

“I’m trying to stay away from talking about it, but with the injuries we do have, to have a schedule like we have, it not only helps us as far as getting these guys back and not (have) played as many games when we haven’t had them,” Tortorella said. “But it has brought in a lot more video, a lot more teaching these days.”

Much of the focus has been on taking fewer risks, reducing scoring chances against and playing with structure. The Blue Jackets have done that, allowing three goals the past two games after 14 the previous three. But while doing so, “these last two games we haven’t created much offensively,” said defenseman Zach Werenski, adding that playing smarter has made it more difficult to generate scoring chances.

“I don’t think it should make it harder, but I think it does,” Werenski said. “Guys are kind of thinking just defensively. That’s a good thing, but at the same time we have to be on attack, put everything on net, get bodies there, get guys crashing the net, still play our style. I think we’ve shied away from that.”

Said Tortorella: “We played (Thursday) the way I think we should play. We just need to get some guys going offensively — some pretty key guys.”