If the Blue Jackets could change anything from the season-opening 3-2 loss at Minnesota on Thursday night, it would be the score.
Columbus left the Land of 10,000 Lakes feeling pretty swimmingly about its overall game, as the Blue Jackets played with solid defensive structure and went toe-to-toe with a team that fancies itself a contender in the Western Conference.
“Obviously not happy with the result, but I feel like our body of work in that game and how we played, if we do that, if that's our standard, we're gonna win a lot of hockey games,” alternate captain Zach Werenski said. “It’s definitely something to build on. I would like to get two points, but that’s how goes hockey sometimes.”
Don’t think the Blue Jackets are satisfied losing games, but they did see a lot to build on in the opener. There are always areas of improvement, which the team attacked in Friday’s practice in Denver, but all in all, the compete level and structure were strong.
Columbus allowed the Wild to just six high-danger chances in more than 50 minutes of 5-on-5 play per Natural Stat Trick, out-attempted Minnesota 48-32 at 5-on-5 and got some standout individual performances from Werenski (goal), Kent Johnson (goal and assist) and the top line of Yegor Chinakhov, Sean Monahan and Kirill Marchenko (16-4 shot attempt edge).
"We didn't get the result, which we're not happy with obviously but we got the effort, we got the work, we got the visual of how we want to play, the reinforcement of how we want to play,” head coach Dean Evason said. “We didn't score a couple more goals and we made a couple of mistakes obviously for a couple of goals, which happened, but yeah, we liked how hard our group played tonight.”
The challenge doesn’t get any easier tonight against a Colorado team that has made the Stanley Cup Playoffs the past seven years, but Evason wants the Blue Jackets to bring the same game to altitude.
“We’d like to roll this performance right back,” he said. “Maybe correct a couple of situations. ... But we played the right way. So if we continue to do that, then hopefully that score will be flipped.”
Know The Foe: Colorado Avalanche
Head coach: Jared Bednar (Ninth season)
Team stats (2023-24): Goals per game: 3.68 (1st) | Scoring defense: 3.07 (16th) | PP: 24.5 percent (5th) | PK: 79.9 percent (12th)
The narrative: The 2022 Stanley Cup champions remain able to score with anyone, as such elite players as Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar make the Avs a tough matchup every night. The Avs have won at least 50 games each of the past three seasons but haven’t been able to get back to the top of the mountain the last two years, losing in the first round (Seattle) in 2022-23 and the second round (Dallas) last year. It’s a dangerous team, but it’s not at full strength at the moment thanks to a bevy of injuries up front.
Team leaders: At age 29, MacKinnon has reached another level, winning the Hart trophy a season ago by posting 51 goals and a career-high 140 points, marks that were fourth and second in the league, respectively. He notched his 900th career point in the opener at Vegas. Coming off a 42-62-104 season that placed him eighth in the NHL in points, Rantanen notched a hat trick in the opener. Makar was second among NHL blueliners in goals (21) and points (90) a season ago.
What's new: There wasn’t a lot of turnover to the Avs roster in the offseason, though the team did lose some depth pieces in current CBJ defenseman Jack Johnson as well as forward Brandon Duhaime and defenseman Sean Walker. Personnel is an issue at the moment, as forwards Gabriel Landeskog, Valeri Nichushkin, Artturi Lehkonen and Jonathan Drouin all out. The team is giving opportunity to such youngsters as 2023 first-round pick Calum Ritchie and forward Ivan Ivan, but the team dropped its opener 8-4 in Vegas on Wednesday.
Trending: The teams didn’t play until the final month of the campaign a season ago, with both winning at home. Colorado took a 6-1 win in the Mile High City on March 22, while Columbus won 4-1 in Nationwide Arena on April 1. The series is an even 6-6-0 since 2017-18.
Former CBJ: None
