Blue Jackets Close Out the 2025 Preseason, Blue Jackets @ Capitals Postgame Media

Matthew, was this just one of those uh tougher nights because it seemed like you guys had a lot of things going offensively, but you didn’t have anything to show for it when it came to goals until late in the game. Yeah. Um goalie was good. He made some good saves. I think both goalies were really good tonight. It’s kind of a one of those games where we got our chances. We just couldn’t bury. But overall, um whenever you get those chances, it’s a good sign for our team and the way we played. And obviously I think it was a probably our best overall game of the preseason, but you know there’s obviously stuff that we can tidy up a little bit, but overall I thought uh especially the first and the third. We probably our best stretch of hockey in the preseason. And that’s really what you’re looking for when you have the lineup in that you’re mostly going to start with next Thursday when the regular season starts, right? Yeah. I mean, obviously we’re missing Z and Monty. That’s uh the two pretty key pretty big pieces there. But um you know most of our guys were playing tonight. So um I think it’s just you know these games it’s about analyzing you know the small details in our game. Not necessarily the results cuz you know obviously they matter but uh it starts you know next week but it’s all the details in our system and the way we we uh want to accomplish the way we play. So um I think overall you know tonight first and third I I thought were we’re really good for a group. Are you happy to be through this phase now with basically training camp coming to an end and it’s time to get ready for real games? Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh it’s going to be nice next year going down to two two games per player and four total to be honest with you. Everyone likes to get going in the real thing and um you know we’re we’re through it. Training camp was it it’s in the books now. So um we’re ready to roll ready to get this thing going. Dean, how do you assess what happened here tonight in a in a low-scoring game and as you’re looking over what basically is your NHL lineup? Yeah, I mean, we we liked a lot of stuff that we did here tonight. Um, you know, I get like we talked this morning about looking for our exits out of our zone and and creating some speed and some pace. We did that. We didn’t generate a lot of I mean we had shots but not as many as we probably could have. We should have shot more pucks. That’ll be an area that we’ll talk about. It seems you know last game we’re a little cute um with some stuff as opposed to getting it to the net um and then getting people there. That has to be how we play. Um and you know we just believe that once the regular season starts we’ll we’ll do all those right things. Would we like to see it tonight? Sure. Um, but you know, it’s one of those games that you’re looking to get through and and we did. Um, but we’ve seen a lot of positives, too. Now, you get an opportunity in this game late to pull the goalender and put out a six on four with a power play. And in the preseason, those opportunities don’t always come up, but are they nice as a coach when they do because you can look at things. Yeah. And we we just talked about it that we we conducted ourselves very well with that. Obviously, we got six and they’ve got four. we should be able to control the puck and and have opportunities to score. But what we liked is that how we scored is that we we you know, we did get it to the net. And you know, so it’s a good um example of not only doing it when we have six on four, but we got to do that when we got five on five. So, um again, we’ll we believe we’ll do the right things when once we get there. Did you find any combinations or things that worked tonight that maybe you didn’t know if they would that you can go back to sometime in the future? Yeah, I mean we liked uh Charlie uh Coyle with Oolie and um and KJ. Um we like that Silly with Mo. Then that was the the the switch that we made. Obviously, we’re missing Monty and and uh and missing Z, which is, you know, a huge part of our of our group and likely, you know, we would have generated a little bit more with those two guys in the lineup as well. But they uh um yeah, no, we’re we saw some good things tonight uh that we’ll probably end up sliding into the regular season with. Are you and your coach is happy the preseason’s over now? Yeah, I think everybody is. I mean, it’s it’s it’s nice. Obviously, it’s it’s a process and progression and um we’ve we’ve did a lot of teaching. We’ve did a lot of uh um you know, physical work and um you know, now it’s ready to have a couple of days off. got another few days of practice which is great. Um, dial it right into to get going in Nashville. Thanks,

Mathieu Olivier and Head Coach Dean Evason speak to the media after tonight’s final preseason game in Washington.

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