Five keys to the Blue Jackets winning Game Six

They've lost three straight, including the first two at Nationwide Arena, and the Blue Jackets are now faced with a must-win situation Monday in Game Six of their Eastern Conference First Round series against the Washington Capitals.
It will be the third home game in the series for the Jackets (7:30 p.m., Fox Sports Ohio, Fox Sports Go, 97.1 FM), and they can even things up at three games apiece with a win, forcing a Game Seven on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Here are five ways they can make that happen:

I: NARROW THE FOCUS
There's nothing like the Stanley Cup Playoffs to magnify each miniscule little detail of a hockey game. There's no bigger stage in the entire sport, no other setting where each shift a player goes over the boards could be the one that ultimately decides the game.
So, the Blue Jackets can't get caught daydreaming about a possible Game 7. They need to worry about Game Six first, and then shrink their focus even smaller than that, worrying about each period of the game and then each shift of each period.
That's how minute the focus usually gets for teams that make long runs in the playoffs, knowing that enough small wins - shift by shift - can stack up into monumental victories.
"At the end of the game, all the bounces and all the penalties and the good plays and bad plays, they all add up," said defenseman Zach Werenski, who's going through just his second postseason in the NHL. "Maybe you don't think about them during the game, but at the end of the game, it's something you can kind of reflect on, that if you could make that puck bounce this way for us, we could've scored. Stuff like that. There's just so many what-ifs in the playoffs and you kind of realize how important every single play is."
Narrow the focus, win as many of those plays as possible and see where it leads.
II: AVOID THE BIN
The Jackets are wearing a groove in the ice at both arenas, and they each end at the door of the penalty box. Seriously, this is getting a little ridiculous with the penalties.
Let's frame how often the Blue Jackets are going a man - or two - down in this series, with the help of some numbers, shall we?
During the regular season, which consists of 82 games, the Blue Jackets were penalized 251 times for a total of 565 minutes, which was the third-lowest penalty minutes in the league and second-fewest infractions.
In five games against the Capitals, they're seventh in both categories, already having 24 penalties and 59 minutes on their postseason ledger, or an average of 4.8 penalties and 11.8 penalty minutes per game.
Columbus has already amassed 9.6 percent of its total penalties from the regular season and 10.4 percent of its total penalty minutes in just 6.1 percent of the games played. That's a lot of sitting in the penalty box, watching your teammates scramble to defend a Capitals power play with weapons galore.
It's no wonder Washington has scored at least one power-play goal in all five games and is 8-for-24 in the series (33.3 percent). The Jackets need to keep tweaking their penalty-kill units, but cutting back on trips to the 'Sin Bin' would help even more.
III: CONTROL THE PUCK
One of the reason the Jackets have been called for so many penalties, though, is related to their puck-possession. They had it more than the Capitals in Games 1 and 5, but Washington largely owned the puck in games 2-4.
When you don't have the puck, you chase it. When you chase it, you're more vulnerable to committing stick infractions while trying to get it back. Teams are also more likely to rack up high numbers of hits when their team doesn't have the puck, because they're trying to get it back through physical aggression.
That's fine, because hockey is a contact sport, but you probably want the puck more than you're chasing it around. Chasing it can put players in bad positions, which can lead to penalties, which can result in power-play goals for the other team.
Getting Alex Wennberg back from an upper-body injury that kept him out three games seemed to help balance the Blue Jackets' forward lines, allowing coach John Tortorella to go back to his center setup entering the playoffs.
Despite the loss in Game 5, overtime, Columbus won the puck-possession battle during 5-on-5, taking 56 percent of all shot attempts and generating nearly 59 percent of all scoring chances in the game.
IV: LOCATE THE POWER BUTTON
Things started off great for the Blue Jackets' power-play units, which combined to go 4-for-8 through the first two games.
Since then, the Capitals have snuffed out 13 straight power plays and have won three straight games, including two in overtimes. The way Washington is scoring on its own power-play opportunities thus far, Columbus must figure out a way to get the puck to the net, and in the net, more often with the man-advantage.
"The first two games, our power play was unbelievable, we're winning hockey games, right?" captain Nick Foligno said. "We've stalled off a little here. We've got to find a way to get that back."
V: GIVE 'BOB' SOME HELP
If you look up a list of high-stress jobs, you'll probably find police officer, firefighter, emergency doctor/nurse, middle-school teacher … and then, somewhere in there, is "Bob" in this series.
The Blue Jackets' goalie, Sergei Bobrosvky, was under siege in Games 2, 3 and 4, when the Capitals racked up high shot totals, power plays and scoring chances. Columbus has lost the past three games, but Bobrovsky made numerous high-pressure stops in each - including three beauties in Game 5 that probably set off red-alert warning sirens at the offices of NHL Network.
He also stole a victory in Game 2, on the road, making 54 saves on a mind-boggling 58 shots in that OT affair. It's time for the Blue Jackets to tell their goalie, "Hey, relax buddy, we've got this one."
Despite struggles to score most of the season, the Blue Jackets scored the most in the NHL in the final two-plus months, averaging a league-high 3.95 goals per game after the NHL Trade Deadline passed on Feb.26. That run started hours after the deadline expired, with a 5-1 rout of a team that should feel pretty familiar now, the Capitals.
"He's playing lights out," Foligno said of Bobrovsky, "but we've got to find a way to get some goals for him and get him some wins ... so it's not for nothing."
That's easier said than done, of course. Washington is clogging the neutral zone like hair in a backed-up shower drain, but the Jackets must find an auger and get their goal-scoring engine going.
"Bob" has led them to this point. Now, his teammates must return the favor.