Blue Jackets are fighting fatigue
It was bound to happen that the Blue Jackets, at some point, were going to smash directly into an invisible wall constructed of physical exhaustion, mental fatigue or some combination of both.
There was no avoiding it, because human minds and bodies — even those belonging to highly trained NHL players — have limits.
The Jackets reached theirs, collectively, about 12 minutes into a Game 3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night in Toronto, and the looming question now is a little unsettling.
How much do they have left?
“I’m not a doctor,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said, after canceling a scheduled practice Sunday to prioritize recovery before Game 4 on Monday afternoon. “But I do know at certain times, even when you go through the regular season … you look at some of the games, you look at some of the minutes (played) and sooner or later it catches up with the body.”
It’s a fair point with the Jackets, whose game Monday was their ninth in 15 days, which includes two overtime finishes against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the qualifying round, then a fiveovertime loss to open the series against Tampa Bay.
“I can’t really think of a time when we’ve played this much hockey (before), but I think we all feel pretty good,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “We’re involved in a series where you can’t take games or periods or shifts off, and everyone’s played the same exact amount of hockey, so there’s no excuses. … We’re professional athletes and we have to find a way to be the best we can be every time we hit the ice.”
While true, what Jones said is not entirely accurate.
Columbus and Tampa Bay may have played the “same exact” amount in this particular series, but the minutes gap is far wider when viewed through the whole picture of the NHL’S 24-team playoff format.
The Lightning, one of the Eastern Conference’s top four teams in points percentage during the pandemic-shortened regular season, played in three round-robin games to determine seeding last week while the Jackets and Maple Leafs were locked in a heated series that lasted the full five games.
Tampa Bay did need a shootout to win its first game, Aug. 4 against Washington, but overtime followed the regular-season format — a 3-on-3 that lasted only five minutes.
In all, the Lightning has played sevenplus games in the past 14 days, which includes the five OTS in Game 1 against Columbus. That’s the physical equivalent of nearly nine games, or roughly two fewer in one fewer day than the Jackets, who had logged more than two full games worth of overtime periods alone going into Monday’s game.
Start times also need to be considered, since three of the first four games in the Tampa series were 3 p.m. starts, including the first two. Monday’s game was another 3 p.m. start, after a 7:30 p.m. puckdrop two days earlier. Game 5 will begin at promptly noon Wednesday.
In a number of ways, the Jackets are now skating into uncharted territory.
While they don’t have to deal with flights in this postseason, which is being conducted within NHL quarantine “bubbles” in Toronto and Edmonton, they also haven’t had more than a day off between games yet.
There just isn’t a precedent for how to handle this much hockey with little rest.
“I don’t have the equations or the analytics and all that stuff,” Tortorella said. “I just judge by the athlete. And that’s why what I said (Saturday) night after the game, I meant.”
Some saw those “hitting the wall” comments as an excuse, but Tortorella detests excuses. In his mind, it’s just facing reality in order to move ahead.
“We’re always honest with the players,” Tortorella said. “And it’s not giving them an out. That’s not what we’re trying to do. As hard as we push and as honest as we are in certain areas … we also need to be honest with them.”
Disciplined approach
One area of the Blue Jackets’ game that wasn’t affected by fatigue in the first three games against the Lightning was their ability to stay out of the penalty box.
The Lightning racked up 12 penalties in the first three games, all resulting in power plays, but the Jackets didn’t return the favor in full. In fact, after committing four penalties in the marathon overtime game, they were only called for three more combined in the second and third games.
It was a continuation of the regular season for Columbus, which was the NHL’S least-penalized team. It also was key against the Lightning, which finished fifth on power-play success in the regular season (23.1%) and led all postseason teams with a 40% success rate entering the Columbus series (2 for 5).
“It gives us a chance,” Tortorella said of the Jackets’ ability to check without taking stick infractions. “Our power play has been inconsistent for a little while. The neutralizer is not putting them on the power play, especially this group here that we’re playing against. It’s a point of emphasis each and every game.” bhedger@dispatch.com @Brianhedger