Late slide mars best season for Jackets
The Blue Jackets’ season can’t be defined by one word, much less one emotion: It was thrilling and devastating, out-of-nowhere and a long time coming, a season like no other with an ending Columbus has seen twice.
Nobody expected the Blue Jackets to be a 50-win, 108point team, to set franchise records in scores of categories and flirt with the Presidents’ Trophy until the final week of the season.
And yet the highly successful regular season, including
a 16-game winning streak, only served to make the Blue Jackets’ quick postseason exit feel like a disappointment.
The Jackets lost 5-2 on Thursday at the Penguins Pittsburgh, ending the best-of-seven series after only five games. Coach John Tortorella and center Brandon Dubinsky often use the same verbiage, and so it was after the game.
“This was not a 4-1 series,” they both said.
But it was a 4-1 series. And here are three reasons it ended so quickly.
1. Fleury beat Bob
Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky needed to outplay the Penguins’ Marc-Andre Fleury for the Blue Jackets to have a chance. He didn’t. Not even close, really.
Bobrovsky was leaky and looked nervous all series, letting in 20 goals in the five games and putting up an unfathomable
.882 save percentage.
If Bobrovsky stopped pucks at the same pace as during the regular season — his .932 save percentage led the NHL — he would have allowed eight fewer goals to the Penguins in the series.
It seems Pittsburgh’s puck-movement and plethora of stars unnerved Bobrovsky. He usually goes about his work with an economy of motion, but he was jumpy and unpredictable.
“They’ve got good players, a good team,” Bobrovsky said. “They beat me. We learn from it and move on.”
If only it were that easy. This is now part of Bobrovsky’s reputation. He is 3-10-1 in his career in the postseason, and his .887 save percentage and 3.63 goals-against average are some of the worst numbers among his contemporaries.
Among the 34 active goaltenders who have started 10 postseason games or more, Bobrovsky ranks 33rd in save percentage and 34th
in goals-against average.
Meanwhile, Fleury — pressed into duty late when Matt Murray was injured in Game 1 warmups — was outstanding, despite some outrageous rebounds. He capped the series with 49-save beauty on Thursday.
In the series, the Blue Jackets generated 24 more shots on goal and 34 more shot attempts than the high-octane Penguins. And lost.
2. Penguins’ stars stand out
Before Friday’s playoff games, the top three playoff scorers across the NHL were all Penguins: Evgeni Malkin (11 points), Phil Kessel (eight) and Sidney Crosby (seven).
Crosby scored the dagger goal on Thursday, a one-timer on the power play for a 4-2 lead after the Jackets had a goal that would have tied the score at 3 disallowed because of goaltender interference.
Yes, the Penguins’ top players were their top players in the series. Meanwhile, the Blue Jackets’ highest-paid forwards sputtered offensively. Brandon Saad had one goal and two assists; Brandon Dubinsky had one goal and one assist; and Nick Foligno had no goals and two assists.
And you know about Bobrovsky.
3. Devastated ‘D’
Injuries are a huge part of hockey, and the Blue Jackets — to their credit — made no excuses.
But losing sensational rookie defenseman Zach Werenski to a gruesome injury in Game 3 was a tough blow for a club that relied so heavily on him to generate offense.
The Blue Jackets also played the entire series without the steady hand of Ryan Murray (hand, back), turning one of the roster’s strengths into a nightly scramble.
In hindsight, physical veteran Kyle Quincey and puck-moving rookie Markus Nutivaara should have been in the lineup from the start. They brought life to the lineup starting in Game 4.