It didn’t take long for Zach Werenski’s goal Nov. 28 at Nationwide Arena to prompt questions the Blue Jackets are tired of answering.
Scored with four seconds left in the second period to put them up 3-1 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Blue Jackets got another chance to close out a game while leading in a third period. Those watching probably had the same thought: Can they make it stand up?
No, as it turned out. They couldn’t. Again. The Blue Jackets dropped their fourth straight game after coughing up their eighth lead and fourth two-goal lead in a third period during their first 25 games, losing on Kris Letang’s goal 59 seconds into overtime.
There they went again.
“We’re sick of talking about it,” Werenski said. “I’m sure (reporters) are sick of asking about it, and I’m sure fans are sick of seeing it. So, at the end of the day, it’s just on us to find a way to get a win, a win in regulation, and close a game out. That’s in here. It’s in this (locker) room and it just comes down to doing it now.”
That’s become a mantra.
Two years ago, under former coach Pascal Vincent in 2023-24, the Blue Jackets lost third-period leads 15 times and went 2-2-11 in those games. They’re already more than halfway to matching that number just past the quarter point of this season.
Dean Evason, hired by Blue Jackets president/GM Don Waddell to replace Vincent, appeared to fix this glitch last season. The Jackets stayed in the playoff hunt for 81 games despite dealing with grief from Johnny Gaudreau’s tragic death.
Now, their tendency to lose late leads has returned.
“It comes down to compete in this league,” center Sean Monahan said. “If you’re not feeling it, or whatever it is, you’ve got to find ways to defend (leads), and that comes with working hard.”
Here are four more takeaways:
Reasons for Columbus Blue Jackets collapses not easy to pinpoint
Back when the Blue Jackets began losing late leads, the common denominator was how they played. Too often, they played on their heels defending rather than attacking.
This latest stretch of vanished leads wasn’t due to that. The Blue Jackets have begun playing more assertively with late leads, but they’ve made too many mistakes that led to goals. Goalies Jet Greaves and Elvis Merzlikins are also not free of blame, so it’s harder to assign a general cause now.
Evason and his staff look closely at what leads to each collapse, but those studies have led to his adoption of a commonly used witticism about insanity being defined as doing the same things repeatedly to achieve different results.
“We’ve just got to keep doing the same things over and over and over again, and then it’ll turn,” he said. “And … when things turn, it turns. We need it to turn, but we still have to do our work, not only physically but mentally, to make sure that we have that thought process that, yes, it’s going to get better.”
Werenski boiled it down more bluntly.
“We just have to get one done, close it out, and I feel like it’ll kind of resolve itself,” he said. “Until that happens, everybody’s going to keep talking about it.”
Werenski finished with two points on a goal and assist for his team-leading eighth multi-point game. He finished November with a 6-10-16 scoring line in 15 games and has contributed 5-9-14 while adding points in nine of the past 11 games.
He’s second among NHL defensemen with nine goals, one behind the Washington Capitals’ Jakob Chychrun, and has 15 assists to rank third with 24 points.
Colorado Avalanche star Cale Makar appears to have a comfortable lead for the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman, leading the pack with 9-22-31, but Werenski’s on pace to match his Norris runner-up effort behind Makar last season.
Pittsburgh Penguins’ stars shined against Columbus Blue Jackets
Pittsburgh’s lineup now has more unheralded players than stars, but the Penguins’ stars shined brightly in their comeback victory over the Blue Jackets.
Captain Sidney Crosby scored two goals, including the equalizer in the third to make it 3-3, Bryan Rust sparked the comeback with a goal on the first shift of the third and defenseman Kris Letang scored in overtime.
Erik Karlsson and Evgeni Malkin also contributed with assists on the goals by Rust and Letang.
Columbus Blue Jackets pay for another non-traditional OT strategy
Evason and his assistants have left themselves open for criticism all season with their deployment of forwards and defensemen in 3-on-3 overtime periods.
The latest twist was putting rookie forward Luca Pinelli out for the Jackets’ first overtime shift along with Monahan and Werenski.
Playing his second NHL game, Pinelli tried to help Ivan Provorov win a battle against Malkin at the end of a leg-burning shift and popped the puck to Letang, who turned it into a 2-on-1 that ended the game.
“(Pinelli’s) got a skill set,” Evason said. “He’s got some speed. He got caught out there, obviously, too long, and he was tired at the end, clearly.”
Size matchups also played a role.
“Rust and Crosby aren’t the biggest guys, so we start with (Monahan) and (Pinelli), and then we know they’re going to come back with Malkin and somebody … (Kevin) Hayes or whatever,” Evason said. “We were going with Charlie (Coyle) and (Cole Sillinger) against them, so we tried to match up with them.”
Forwards Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson and Yegor Chinakhov, the latter two massively slumping, watched from the bench.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social