The Blue Jackets are facing the first stretch of adversity this season, but they believe they have the players and the atmosphere in the locker room to handle it.
After a 5-3-1 start that included a four-game point streak through last Wednesday, the Blue Jackets dropped consecutive games over the weekend to two of the hottest teams in the league. NHL-leading Winnipeg came to Nationwide Arena on Friday night and left with a 6-2 victory, while things didn’t get much better Saturday evening in a 7-2 loss at division rival Washington.
The result was Monday was spent learning what went wrong. The Blue Jackets coaching staff held a video session where the team saw its mistakes on the ice before a hard 45-minute practice that included plenty of skating and some fired-up coaches.
“I think it’s great,” defenseman Zach Werenski said. “I think the accountability part of it – how we handled it, how we went about it – was awesome. I think teams need that. I actually enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy that and you don’t enjoy learning and watching the mistakes you made to hurt the team, then you’re in the wrong business. I think it’s what every team needs.”
For head coach Dean Evason, it wasn’t about punishing the players, it was about trying to get better. He said he turned on the tape after Saturday’s game and felt it was worse than he even expected, with the team making structural errors that were compounded when they didn’t have the work ethic to try to make up for them.
As a result, effort was non-negotiable on Monday.
“The guys know that we as a coaching staff, there’s no gray, it’s black and white,” Evason said. “It’s, ‘This is what happened.’ We watched every goal this morning. It’s not calling guys out. I think we established that right away. It’s teaching, it’s learning, and it’s being accountable. If you’re on six of those clips, so be it. You’re the one that is going to teach us how not to do the things that were done in order to allow teams to score on us.
“But it’s nice to get right after it, and to see the response of our group in practice was great. We had a good meeting as far as the right things have been said, but now it needs to be applied in a game because that’s where the wins and losses happen.”
Columbus now embarks on its first extended road trip of the year, a three-game swing through California before ending things in Seattle. It’s a 10-day chance to get away, bond and see if they can get things back on the right track, starting with tonight’s game in San Jose.
“Now we move on and go to San Jose,” Werenski said. “I don’t think there’s too much behind it. We played two good teams. That’s no excuse for how we played in those games, but I think it exposes what happens when you’re not playing your game and not playing hard enough. We’ll learn from it."
Know The Foe: San Jose Sharks
Head coach: Ryan Warsofsky (First season)
Team stats: Goals per game: 2.46 (28th) | Scoring defense: 3.77 (30th) | PP: 20.5 percent (15th) | PK: 81.5 percent (14th)
The narrative: San Jose made the playoffs 19 of 21 seasons from 1998-2019, but the rebuild is fully on in Silicon Valley. You could certainly do worse, though, than the team’s draft picks each of the past two seasons, as the Sharks took Macklin Celebrini with the No. 1 overall pick in this summer’s draft and forward Will Smith at No. 4 in 2023. Fellow young attackers William Eklund and Thomas Bordeleau were taken high in recent drafts, as well, and are already starting to make an impact with the Sharks.
Team leaders: With Celebrini out with a lower body injury after notching a goal and assist in his NHL debut, the Sharks are led up front by a pair of veterans in Mikael Granlund (6-8-14) and Tyler Toffoli (6-5-11). Signed in the offseason, defenseman Jake Walman is next with a goal and nine points, while Eklund has a 2-7-9 line in his second full NHL season. Fabian Zetterlund adds six goals among his eight points as well.
In net, the team traded for top prospect Yaroslav Askarov this offseason, but he’s landed in the AHL, with Mackenzie Blackwood (eight starts; 2-4-2, 3.52; .893) and Vitek Vanecek (five starts; 1-4-0, 365, .879) splitting time.
What's new: The Sharks got off to a dreadful start, losing the first nine (0-7-2) before three straight wins, a streak that ended Saturday with a loss vs. Vancouver. It’s been a tough start for Warsofsky, who spent the previous two seasons as an assistant in San Jose before getting the top job this summer. The Sharks brought in veterans like Toffoli, Walman, Alexander Wennberg, Luke Kunin, Carl Grundstrom, Barclay Goodrow and Cody Ceci to help the young team from a leadership standpoint, though injuries to Celebrini, longtime captain Logan Couture and defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic haven’t helped. The good news for the Sharks: Celebrini is expected to return tonight against the Blue Jackets.
Trending: Columbus swept the season series a year ago, taking a 4-3 win in February in San Jose on Boone Jenner’s last-minute goal and then winning a 4-2 final in Nationwide Arena in March. The Blue Jackets have won four in a row in the series and are 7-3-0 in the last 10.
Former CBJ: Now 30, Wennberg has landed in the Bay Area and has a 2-4-6 line so far on the campaign.
