Monday night should be an exciting night for the Blue Jackets, and not just because the Hockey Holidays continue and a big crowd is expected in Nationwide Arena.
It could also be the debut for one of the team’s – and league’s – top prospects in CBJ defenseman Denton Mateychuk. The 20-year-old smooth skater had a decorated junior career and hasn’t stopped in the pros, as the 12th overall pick in the 2022 draft leads AHL defensemen with nine goals and 25 points this season.
Mateychuk was summoned Sunday from Cleveland after the Blue Jackets saw a pair of defensemen in Zach Werenski and Jake Christiansen get banged up in the third period of Saturday’s 5-4 overtime loss at Philadelphia.
Though both returned to action, it surely didn’t help as the Blue Jackets tried and failed to hold a trio of third-period leads, as Philadelphia rallied from deficits of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 to take the win.
“We had a couple of D-men get hurt, so we were short for a little bit there,” forward Mathieu Olivier said after the loss. “It felt like we were kind of reacting to that, which is normal. We stayed with it. They did as well. Found a way to send it to OT. We just didn’t get it done.”
The Blue Jackets are still trying to recapture the form that made them a surprise in the early going, and the overtime loss was their third in the last six games. It was also the fourth loss in a 2-6-3 stretch in which the squad was tied or leading in the third period, including the second time they let a team score an extra-attacker goal and then win in overtime in that span.
In other words, they've been close to gaining more points were it not for a few key mistakes at important times, including in Philadelphia.
“I think there are some personal structural mistakes that we made that could have been avoided,” Olivier said postgame. “The goals we gave up wasn’t for a lack of effort or anything like that. Just mental mistakes. So gotta dial that in, and I feel like I’ve said that before, but that’s an issue.”
Still, head coach Dean Evason said he wasn’t disappointed with the team’s effort against the Flyers.
“We played the game hard,” Evason said. “We maybe ran out of a bit of steam there at the end and made a couple of mistakes that they capitalized on, but I’m not gonna beat it too bad. It obviously looks bad (losing) a 2-0 lead, but we just talked about it as a group. We competed our (butts) off. I know it’s hard to say in a game like tonight, but we’ll take the positives out of this.”
Know The Foe: Montreal Canadiens
Head coach: Martin St. Louis (Fourth season)
Team stats: Goals per game: 2.91 (20th) | Scoring defense: 3.55 (29th) | PP: 22.4 percent (12th) | PK: 82.4 percent (8th)
The narrative: After a stunning run to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, the Canadiens have been in rebuilding mode ever since, drafting such players as Cole Caufield (2019), Kaiden Guhle (2020), Logan Mailloux (2021), Juraj Slafkovsky (2022), David Reinbacher (2023) and Ivan Demidov (2024) in the first round, with Slafkovsky being the first overall pick. The results have yet to come – the Habs finished last in the Atlantic Division each of the past three years and occupy that spot right now – but the hope is that young core will eventually lead to a new era of Montreal hockey.
Team leaders: Captain Nick Suzuki might be one of the more underrated players in the game, posting a team-best 11-23-34 line thus far this year including points in 10 of the last 12 games (4-11-15). Now wearing No. 13, Caufield has gotten off to a red-hot start and is tied for 10th in the NHL with 17 goals among his 30 points. First-year defenseman leads all rookie blueliners with 25 points (1-24-25) and is tied for 11th among all NHL D in scoring.
In net, Sam Montembeault has started 27 games so far, and the Team Canada goalie for the 4 Nations Face-Off is 12-13-2 with a 2.85 GAA and .903 save percentage.
What's new: And then there’s Patrik Laine. The former Blue Jackets forward missed the first two months of the season but has come back with a vengeance and will make his return to Nationwide Arena having scored eight goals – all power-play tallies – in his nine games thus far. Buoyed in part by Laine’s scoring, the Habs are 6-3-0 in games he’s played and are riding a three-game winning streak in which they’ve tallied 15 goals.
Trending: Montreal has won both games in the series this year, including a 4-3 overtime contest on Thanksgiving Eve in Nationwide Arena, leaving the Blue Jackets with a 1-5-2 record in the last eight games of the series.
Former CBJ: In addition to Laine, two longtime Blue Jackets remain on the roster in Josh Anderson (6-7-13) and David Savard (0-7-7).
