No matter how many times they checked it, the Blue Jackets’ fuel gauge kept reading “empty” against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night at Nationwide Arena.
Outworked in a 5-3 loss that was worse than the final margin indicated, the Jackets learned a hard lesson about what can happen if they don’t match or exceed their opponents’ effort.
“We weren’t good enough at the start,” Blue Jackets center Sean Monahan said. “We got outcompeted and tried to chase the game the rest of the way, so that’s not the way we want to play or should be playing.”
Here are three takeaways:
The Blue Jackets dominated the Vancouver Canucks so thoroughly in a first period last week at Rogers Arena that coach Dean Evason called it their best 20 minutes of the season. He’s even doubled and tripled down on that despite losing that game, but Tuesday’s performance was arguably the Jackets’ worst of the season.
Former Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella brought his Flyers into Columbus with motivation to end a frustrating three-game winless skid, which they did impressively. While the Blue Jackets flailed at pucks and slogged up and down the ice with tired legs, the Flyers put on a clinic in “hard work” hockey.
They won the vast majority of puck battles, got to loose pucks first, drew penalties and controlled possession with relative ease. The Flyers also extended the Blue Jackets’ mind-boggling streak of allowing at least one power-play goal to 14 straight games.
It was easily the worst the Blue Jackets have played for Evason in a full game, and he wasn’t buying any excuses tied to a mental or physical letdown following a taxing five-game trip that lasted eight days and included stops in Chicago, Western Canada and Winnipeg.
“You come home, I don’t care how many games we played or whatever (people) call it, the ‘trap’ game or whatever the hell it’s called … it’s ridiculous,” Evason said. “We knew they were going to work, and in order for us to have success, we needed to at least match their work. We got caught from behind, we lost our puck battles. Everybody. … I’m not even going to mention a guy because I think the entire group gets lumped together.”
The Blue Jackets and Flyers are similar when compared side-by-side, including head coaches who share the same belief about how to successfully play hockey.
Evason and Tortorella want their teams to play with aggression and force opposing players into a frustrating night skating mostly in their own zone.
Only one team, the Flyers, accomplished that goal Tuesday. They pinned the Blue Jackets into their own zone for two-plus periods, building a 5-1 lead before finally backing off the gas pedal a bit. The underlying stats tracked by Natural Stat Trick were strikingly lopsided in Philly’s favor during the first 40 minutes.
“We turned the puck back more tonight than we ever have, which tells us that we’re getting caught from behind,” Evason said. “So, you don’t feel comfortable going forward (and) you automatically turn back, or you move the puck back, and all you do is invite a forecheck and invite them to be more aggressive with an aggressive team, and we just fed into that because of what we didn’t do.”
It was one of the few times that’s happened in the first 28 games of Evason’s tenure with the Blue Jackets.
“For the most part, we don’t do that,” he said. “Even in the games we lost out on the road, we were still playing right, going north, playing hard. Tonight, we played south and played soft.”
Coming off an impressive performance Sunday night in Winnipeg, Evason scrapped the Blue Jackets’ practice Monday. The day off didn’t recharge any batteries, so Evason and his coaching staff plan to push the team’s collective heart rate up a few notches in a Wednesday practice at Nationwide Arena.
They host the Washington Capitals on Thursday in a tough matchup against the leaders of the Metropolitan Division, who’ve already routed the Blue Jackets once this season.
“It’s tough because you try (to correct things) in between periods, when the whole group’s there, and it’s difficult when you don’t have even a line or some guys that are pushing forward to go in the right direction,” Evason said. “We’ve got to throw (Tuesday’s game) out. Obviously, we haven’t skated for a bit, so we’ll get a good burn (Wednesday) and get our legs going again.”
bhedger@dispatch.com
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