Columbus Blue Jackets

Post Battle #79 vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins
April 5, 2017, 10:35 AM ET [22 Comments]
Paul Berthelot
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Final Score: Penguins 4 – Blue Jackets 1

Game Summary

That was easily the toughest stretch of the season and likely one of the toughest three game stretches any team has had to face this season. The Jackets in fourth place in the league played the three teams ahead of them in the standings. A playoff position had already been locked up but this was an opportunity for the Jackets to prove they belonged in the top tier alongside those teams. The Jackets could not do this and went 0-3-0. Despite the record they played well in these games. Against Pittsburgh in particular they were strong but due to some unfortunate bounces lost 4-1.

In the last three games against Washington, Chicago and Pittsburgh the Jackets have combined for a 59.92% Corsi at 5 on 5, capped off by a 66.67% effort against the Penguins. Those are impressive totals for any three game stretch let alone the best three teams in the league. There were debates about this after the game as the argument against those numbers are score affects played a part as to why the Jackets were so dominate. Good teams jumped out to big leads and the Jackets racked up shots in garbage time. The counter point to that if you adjust the number to account for the score the Jackets don’t look quite as good, but are still at a dominate 56.18% over those three games.

The other argument to this is that most of the Jackets shots are low probability shots from the outside. The counterpoint is that the Jackets held the scoring chance advantage in each game (both at 5 on 5 and score adjusted) registering over 20 in each game. Even just watching the game you could see how well the Jackets were playing and how unfortunate they were to lose to Pittsburgh. They had plenty of long shifts in the Penguins zone and had plenty of tear your hair out chances they couldn’t convert on. To put that into context the Jackets had 15 high danger chances in this game. They have done that in just 10 previous games, in those nine other games they went 6-3. To go even further they have recorded double digit high danger chances in 36 games this year and went 26-10 in those games.

They could have very easily beat Pittsburgh but the team could not finish and Pittsburgh got some bounces that ended up in the net. Of the four goals Pittsburgh scored only the Patrick Hornqvist goal was one that wasn’t off a bad bounce. The first one Jack Johnson made a bad pass that bounced off Cam Atkinson’s stick, the third goal deflected off Cam’s leg and in, and the last one was shot into traffic, hit some bodies and went in. All three could have easily ended up blocked or missing the net and were looking at a 1-1 game instead of 4-1.

Even with Oliver Bjorkstrand back, the Jackets could not get the offense going. They scored a single goal again, and it came short-handed.