Johnny Gaudreau's rebound game spoiled by Columbus Blue Jackets' eighth straight loss
WASHINGTON — Pascal Vincent is tired of watching his Blue Jackets find ways to lose close games.
After it happened again in a 4-3 loss to the Washington Capitals on Saturday night at Capital One Arena, the coach's frustrations finally boiled over. Despite Johnny Gaudreau scoring the game's first goal in his 700th NHL appearance and Boone Jenner assisting on it in his 675th game ― most in the Blue Jackets' history ― the result was an eighth straight winless game.
"It's getting old, you know?" Vincent said. "Like, it's getting old. We shoot ourselves in the foot. We do so many good things, and I’m repeating myself. Just play the same tape as the last game. We do a lot of good things, where we're playing the right way. Yeah, we make mistakes, like the other team makes mistakes, as well, but then we make mistakes at the wrong time and it’s costing us games, costing us points. So, it’s getting old.”
Ivan Provorov and Justin Danforth scored goals for the Blue Jackets (4-10-4) in the third, cutting Capitals leads to 3-2 and 4-3, but Washington got its winner between those tallies when Hendrix Lapierre capped a breakaway with a backhand goal against Elvis Merzlikins (22 saves).
Sonny Milano, Aliaksei Protas and Alex Ovechkin scored the Capitals' first three goals, all after Gaudreau scored in the second. Charlie Lindgren made 32 saves in the win for the Capitals (9-4-2).
Here are five takeaways:
Columbus Blue Jackets tiring of ‘same old movie’
Losing streaks aren’t all built the same, which the Blue Jackets are showing in this one.
Rarely do losing teams play as many close games as they have without winning, but here we are. The Jackets' eight straight losses include an unsightly 1-5-2 record that includes leads coughed up in the past seven consecutive games. The Jackets are one loss shy of tying a franchise record nine straight, which the Jackets have reached only four other times in their history, most recently 2021.
Costly mistakes are the biggest issue, and it isn’t letting up.
This time, Gaudreau’s second goal of the season gave them a 1-0 lead that was erased less than two minutes later. The Capitals turned it into a 3-1 lead with two more goals that period and got the winner from Lapierre with 6:26 left in the third. Danforth cut it to 4-3 late, but the Blue Jackets couldn’t pull even despite a late power play that included a partial 6-on-4 advantage after pulling Merzlikins.
That was almost a carbon copy of how their 3-2 loss ended Thursday against the Arizona Coyotes.
“It looks like every game, the same old story,” Provorov said. “It's like you’re rewatching the same movie over and over again. … it takes time to learn how to win. Right now, it feels like we’re almost there but not quite, and that ‘almost there’ is a big difference between winning games and losing games.”
Vincent’s bubbling emotions finally boiled over.
“It’s every game,” he said. “We're right there. We could be four or five games above .500 right now. It’s getting ridiculous. Like, it’s just those little lapses and then the first thing you know, the puck is in the back of your net. We’re going to focus on the positive here, but it’s getting old. I’m repeating myself, but it’s getting pretty (expletive) old right now.”
Mistakes that led to the Capitals' last two goals included not covering Ovechkin, the NHL's second all-time leading goal-scorer, and turning the puck over on Lapierre's breakaway that won it. Patrik Laine, who's struggled since returning from a nine-game absence for a concussion, played key roles in both goals.
He and two Blue Jackets defensemen got caught below the goal line on Ovechkin's goal and it was Laine's turnover off an attempted pass in the Washington zone that started Lapierre's breakaway.
"He came back from his injury, and it takes some time," Vincent said. "But he was … we know he’s better than that.”
The next opportunity to end the slide is Sunday at the Philadelphia Flyers, whose bench is run by former Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella. The Flyers have already won once this season in both teams’ season-opener at Nationwide Arena.
Columbus Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner officially 'Mr. Blue Jacket’
Everything in the NHL moves fast, but time passes quickest.
The Blue Jackets’ latest example is captain Boone Jenner, who’s playing his 11th NHL season and passed Rick Nash on Saturday most games played for the franchise.
Jenner, who assisted on Gaudreau's goal, logged his 675th game for the Jackets, who drafted him with the seventh pick of the second round (37th overall) in 2011.
He’s officially 'Mr. Blue Jacket' now.
“It goes by quick,” Jenner said. “Here we are in my 11th year, but you think about all the past teammates that helped you in your early years and coaches and training staff that’s been here along the way, the whole way for me. It’s pretty cool to do it with them. Just to wear that Blue Jackets logo, it’s a special feeling and something I take a lot of pride in, and I never take it for granted.”
Throughout Jenner's career, three traits have stood out. He has a relentless work ethic, valuable versatility and leadership that led to Jenner being named captain of the Blue Jackets in 2021-22.
Vincent is the sixth NHL coach to benefit from Jenner's presence in the lineup.
“He plays the hard way (and) the right way,” Vincent said. “He practices the same. He’s a good teammate. He’s low maintenance. I really don’t need to speak to Boone Jenner. When I speak to Boone Jenner, most of the time it's about his teammates and the team. He’s a great leader and he’s been doing it over time. … you just know, like a clock. He’s such a great man and it’s a great accomplishment.”
Johnny Gaudreau a bright spot in Columbus Blue Jackets' loss
Each of the Jackets’ eight straight losses has contained a silver lining.
This one was Gaudreau, whose offensive struggles appeared to dissipate after his goal. He put the Jackets up briefly, 1-0, in the second and shifted back into an elite puck-handler the remainder of the game. Gaudreau was happy to play closer to his talent level, but he knows the Jackets have fallen into a deep pit.
“It was nice to score,” he said. “It gave us the lead, and then they took it right back real quick, and we were fighting again for most of the night down a few goals. It's hard. Pretty much every one of our games is a one-goal game. We’ve got to figure it out, find a way really quickly to be the team that’s winning the one-goal games.”
Columbus Blue Jackets giving up too many leads
It’s getting to be like clockwork.
After scoring key goals, you can almost expect them to give them right back within the next couple minutes. It happened again in the second period against the Capitals, turning a 1-0 Columbus lead into a 3-1 deficit on goals by Milano, Protas and Ovechkin.
Gaudreu's goal felt like a watershed moment for the struggling star, and it should’ve been one. Instead, the Capitals immediately turned up the heat and scored three goals before the horn sounded. It's happened far too often. In fact, the blown lead was the Jackets’ 14th of the season, in just 18 games, and was their seventh straight game giving up a lead.
It’s a huge problem.
"I guess the long-term answer is learning how to play with a lead late in periods, up a goal, right time, right place to make a play," Gaudreau said. "It all comes with learning. Hopefully we can learn quickly, because the season, it's getting going here pretty quick."
The Blue Jackets, who are last in the Metropolitan Division, already sit eight points back of the Carolina Hurricanes for the second wild card.
"Obviously, the guys going out there for the next shift (after a goal) are hungry to score a goal and hungry to go to work, so maybe it's just bringing it up after a goal to get guys a bit more focused on (keeping the lead)," Danforth said. "Obviously guys aren't going out there to get scored on. They're going out to have momentum and a big shift."
Columbus Blue Jackets' decisions after Jack Roslovic’s injury interesting
Since forward Jack Roslovic headed to injured reserve with a fractured ankle, the Blue Jackets have made some interesting moves to fill that roster spot.
The first was recalling rookie defenseman David Jiricek from a one-game stint in the American Hockey League. That bumped the number of defensemen in Columbus to eight, making Andrew Peeke and Adam Boqvist the two extra defenders. Recalling another defenseman over skilled forward Kent Johnson, the fifth overall pick of the 2021 draft, certainly raised some eyebrows.
The next curious move also involved Johnson, who also stayed in the AHL on Thursday after the Jackets called up Trey Fix-Wolansky and assigned Emil Bemstrom to Cleveland. Bemstrom’s demotion wasn’t surprising, but picking Fix-Wolansky over Johnson was more fodder for debate.
Fix-Wolansky got off to a great start with 16 points in the Monsters’ first 11 games, so that part made sense, but Johnson spent 79 games in the NHL last season and now has 3-8-11 for Cleveland in just six games. While the Blue Jackets were losing to the Capitals, Johnson had a goal and three assists in the Monsters' 7-5 loss to Rochester in Cleveland.
Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said Saturday that Fix-Wolansky was chosen because the team wants to avoid putting Johnson on a shuttle between Columbus and Cleveland.
They want him playing a lot of minutes in a top-line role to gain confidence, which appears to be happening. That wasn't the end of the Jackets’ puzzling decisions, however. Fix-Wolansky was also scratched Saturday after just one game. He came out to make room for power forward Mathieu Olivier, whose size, muscle and toughness likely got him back into the lineup as a protective measure against Capitals power forward Tom Wilson.
Olivier skated at right wing on a line with Gaudreau at left wing and Laine in the middle.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets' winless skid hits eight
