Blue Jackets look for some of last year’s luck

The Columbus Blue Jackets got plenty of lucky breaks in their surprisingly successful 201617 season.

Serious injuries were avoided, their power play was one of the NHL’s best, and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky won the Vezina Trophy. Pucks bounced the Blue Jackets’ way more often than not as they piled up a 16-game winning streak and earned a playoff spot, just one season removed from a last-place finish in the Metropolitan Division.

Good fortune has been a little bit harder to come by this season for the Blue Jackets, who are in danger of fading out of the playoff picture in the Metro. Injuries have taken some of the team’s best players out of action for big chunks of time. The power-play is worst in the league. The penalty-kill is only slightly better.

“We’re spoiled because of the year we had last year when everything went our way, we got breaks, we were healthy, a lot of things went our way,” said Columbus coach John Tortorella after the Blue Jackets outshot Washington, 39-25, on Tuesday night but lost the game when Nicklas Backstrom scored with 43 seconds left.

“As I’ve always said, we forced them to go our way for the most part, but you do get some luck in a year,” he said. “We had a ton of it. We’ve got (expletive) for luck right now.”

Forwards Cam Atkinson, Brandon Dubinsky, Nick Foligno and Boone Jenner — players expected to be top goal scorers — all were slow to get started. Atkinson just got back on the ice after missing a month with a broken foot. A fractured orbital bone sustained in a fight Dec. 12 sidelined Dubinsky for six weeks. He just got back in the lineup, scoring the tying goal in the third period Tuesday night.

Jenner missed the first seven games of the season with an injury. Center Alexander Wennberg and defenseman Zach Werenski also have been out with hurts.

Those players were expected to shoulder the load. Instead it has been wingers Artemi Panarin, Josh Anderson and Oliver Bjorkstrand.