Blue Jackets Slowly Gaining Momentum Amidst Slow Start

“It’s just about trying to keep your confidence high, because it’s easy to let it go, but if I trust my process, trust my training, trust my day-to-day process, I’ll be okay,” said Conor Garland.

Garland is one the many examples of Blue Jackets who the team needs to start producing in a big way. He was brought in to be a key cog for their offensive machine, but he has zero points through nine games, and a minus-1 rating while on-ice.

Is the Lack of Goals A Surprise?

The Columbus Blue Jackets have a few players out to nice starts so far into this season, but a large majority of this team is out to a very slow start. The aforementioned Garland, Sean Monahan, Valeri Nichushkin, and Matthew Knies all haven’t really been able to get it going much on the ice.

“I mean we are getting chances, and not scoring. I don’t know, I think we got to crank it up and get the intensity going around their net,” said Monahan.

Monahan also talked about the idea of being more inclined to shoot the puck more. He talked about having his mind made up, and costing himself opportunities and looks at wide open nets.

“I’ve had a few of those ones (scoring chances), and I think I got to look at the net more and shoot more. So, that is one thing for me, that I am trying to focus on. I’m looking past, and I look over last second and realize I have an empty net, and I am already committed to shooting, so that’s on me. I got to be more poised, and be a more mature player to put those in,” said Monahan.

We have heard so much about how Blue Jackets hockey is to pull teams into those 1-0, and 2-1 type of games, but at some point you have to be able to produce at a higher rate and start to put goals on the board.

However, they don’t want to start pressing too hard on the scoring drought right now. The team is confident the goals will come.

“We can get ahead of ourselves, and I think you have kind of seen that last year at the end of the year. Where we kind of get into that spot and then it is almost like every game is game seven, and we are almost gripping it too tight, and that is where mistakes start to creep in. I feel like that’s where we got off to the wrong foot to start the year,” said Denton Mateychuk.

A big piece of that offensive puzzle and scoring problem can also be addressed by success on the power play, which is another struggling piece of the Blue Jackets game right now.

“Something like that, winning a game with a power play goal, after it’s been a struggle since pretty much game one could be just little things that kind of change the tide to something like that for you,” said Mateychuk.

Bowness Wants to Get Guys Going

As mentioned earlier, Garland has been a big sticking point with this team offensively, and needing to find a way to get him going has been a consistent problem for the Blue Jackets. Bowness hopes pairing him up with Monahan and Cole Sillinger will solve some of those issues.

“So now we’ve put him with Cole and Monahan. That line looked really good the other night. So, now he’s got to get around the net a little bit more, and you better give that line a little bit of time to create some chemistry, but I thought Sean Monahan had his best game last game,” said Bowness.

Dante Fabbro is also set to return to the lineup barring any set backs pregame in Philadelphia against the Flyers. He will be another addition that only helps to resolidify what the preseason defensive core was slated to look like. Getting both he and Ivan Provorov back will make a massive difference to the team defensive structure.

Not many people realize the Blue Jackets main reason for success on the stretch run after the hiring of Bowness last season was because of their defensive core. They have a legit top-four defensemen when healthy, and the re-addition of Fabbro helps to solidify the third pairing as well.

Success on this road trip may not fully come in the form of wins, because of the uptick in competition level, but if they can walk away with at least three points I think they will feel pretty good. The game against the Flyers becomes a got-to-have-it game, when the following two games are the Carolina Hurricanes, and Dallas Stars.

If the Blue Jackets can find a way to execute on both sides of the puck, and get their special teams going, then they will have a chance to grab even more momentum in the early season scramble.

They won’t return home in Columbus until Sunday, and then they will play host to the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday, Nov. 3.