Morning Musings: Blue Jackets shut out by Bruins

The Blue Jackets dropped their third straight home game Friday night against Boston, absorbing a 4-0 shutout loss at the hands of a Bruins team that has now won eight of its first nine games. After taking a 1-0 lead in the opening frame, the Bruins broke the game open in the second with three goals and finished things off from there.

Game In Five Minutes

Three Trending Topics

1. It's amazing how quickly things can change. The Blue Jackets posted a 5-1 win Sunday night at the New York Rangers and felt like things were on the upswing, as the team had three wins in four games and was headed home for two contests ahead of its trip to Finland for the NHL Global Series.
   Five days later and the mood certainly has changed, as Columbus never found its footing in either Tuesday's 6-3 loss to Arizona or last night's game against the Bruins. Simply put, the Blue Jackets know they have to be better.
   "They were a way better hockey team than us," defenseman Erik Gudbranson said. "Plain and simple. That's a team that is getting to the end for some of their best players that's looking to compete for a Stanley Cup this year, and we got beat by them in pretty much every area of the ice."
   The Blue Jackets played some good minutes, including buzzing their way through an early power play and having an early edge in possession through the first eight or so minutes, only to watch Boston goalie Linus Ullmark make a number of timely saves.
   But as soon as Matt Grzelcyk's shot from the top of the circle grazed off Sean Kuraly's stick, changed directions and went in the top corner of Elvis Merzlikins' net to make it 1-0 8:43 into the game, Boston seemed to be on the front foot.
   "Playing the best team in the league, losses like that, they sting," Kuraly said.
   2. So now what? The only way out of it is to work, and the Blue Jackets acknowledged they need to be better in just about every single area. There were a few bad breaks, such as Grzelcyk's goal off Kuraly's stick and even a shot from Kent Johnson that Jake DeBrusk blocked and took the length of the ice for a breakaway goal, but head coach Brad Larsen said that wasn't the difference in the game.
   "We gotta get more competitive in our one-on-ones and some different areas," he said. "We can't fool ourselves here and say it's just bad breaks. Today there's no excuse, the competitive level, especially in the second for me. Even there's spots in the first, too easy to get through guys, too easy for me."
   That has a trickledown effect all over the ice, as the Blue Jackets didn't create enough (only 1.38 expected goals at 5-on-5,
   per Natural Stat Trick
   ), gave up too much to the Bruins and for the second game in a row had to make a goaltending switch midway through the proceedings.
   "We have to figure out how to play better to a man, every single guy, and we will," Kuraly said. "It's disappointing when we think we have better and we know we have better. We're going to get there, but it's not how we wanted to play for most of the game."
   3. The pregame narrative centered on defenseman David Jiricek, the team's top choice and the No. 6 overall pick in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, who made his NHL debut.
   Just the seventh 18-year-old to lace 'em up in team history and only the second defenseman of that age, Jiricek mostly skated with Vladislav Gavrikov but also got the chance to work with top blueliner Zach Werenski. Jiricek finished with 15:35 of action, was minus-1, had one shot on goal and delivered three hits.
   "There's some good, some tough moments," Larsen said. "Pretty typical of an 18-year-old defenseman, but I thought he did pretty well for his first NHL game. The speed got to him a little bit there, but you can tell he's assertive. He's going to trust his feet. He's gonna go. We'll look at it a little bit more, but I'm encouraged by what I saw. There's some growth needed."

Quote Of The Game

Goaltender Elvis Merzlikins on the back-to-back losses: "Right now, it is about all of us. We need to get out of this together. It's not about goaltending. It's not about defensemen. It's not about forwards. It's about all of us together."

Nerd Stuff

• Jiricek became the 318th player in team history, the 22nd native of Czechia to skate for the Jackets and the fifth player ever to wear No. 55 for the team (Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, Mark Letestu, John Ramage, Carson Meyer).
• Boone Jenner played in his 598th game with the Blue Jackets, breaking a tie with David Savard for fourth all-time in franchise history.
• Johnny Gaudreau was held without a point for the first time in six home games on the season.
• Kent Johnson's streak of three straight games with a goal ended, as did Andrew Peeke's run of two consecutive contests with tallies.
• Gavin Bayreuther played 15:09 in his season debut with six shot attempts and two blocked shots.
• David Pastrnak finished with a goal on a game-high 11 shot attempts, including six on net. Patrik Laine led Columbus with nine shot attempts.

Being Social

Happy Hockey Halloween everyone!