Remember when the Blue Jackets were flying high as one of the NHL’s best teams and a dark horse pick to win the Stanley Cup?
More: Columbus Blue Jackets lose sixth straight game. Replay
That was two weeks, eight games and seven losses ago that prompted a 24-minute postgame meeting April 4 to air a few grievances following a suffocating 2-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets witnessed by another mostly disappointed sellout crowd of 18,272 at Nationwide Arena.
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Highlights of Columbus Blue Jackets vs Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena
Fans walk up to the concourse before the NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
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Highlights of Columbus Blue Jackets vs Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena
Fans walk up to the concourse before the NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
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Highlights of Columbus Blue Jackets vs Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena
Fans wait in line for the NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
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Highlights of Columbus Blue Jackets vs Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena
Fans walk into the arena before the NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
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Highlights of Columbus Blue Jackets vs Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena
Fans walk up to the concourse before the NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
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Highlights of Columbus Blue Jackets vs Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena
Fans walk up the escalator before the NHL game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
It was the sixth straight loss for the Blue Jackets (38-27-12), a season-long skid, and they dropped to 1-6-1 since defeating the Seattle Kraken on March 31 to extend a season-high 12-game points streak. They were willing physically, starting strong on Ivan Provorov’s goal 1:17 into the game, but their minds couldn’t keep pace.
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“All our issues right now are just related to terrible puck management,” coach Rick Bowness said. “Terrible. Making very poor percentage plays. We create the most chances on the forecheck in the entire league, yet we want to be getting inside the blue line and making cute little plays against good teams that are not working … and they’re not working … so I have to get after them. They’ve got to change their mindset.”
In a nutshell, the Jets did to the Blue Jackets (38-27-12) what the Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins did to them in the previous three games.
Once comfortable enough to deploy all five skaters inside the Jackets’ blue line as a forechecking force, they completely took over the game and severely tilted the ice. As a result, the Jackets became disjointed, spread out and panicky, struggling to get pucks out of their zone just to exit long shifts with barely enough time for their replacements to enter the game for the same experience.
It’s exhausting just to watch. Imagine living it.
Columbus Blue Jackets left wing Danton Heinen (43) fights for the puck against Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dylan DeMelo (2) in the first period of the NHL game at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
That’s how things went for the Jackets most of the night, again, just rinse and repeat until goalie Jet Greaves was finally beaten twice by Jets star forward Kyle Connor.
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Greaves was fantastic, by the way. He didn’t deserve that loss, but it’s been like this for five straight games as the Jets, Hurricanes, Bruins and San Jose Sharks combined to outshoot the Jackets by a combined 154-100 margin while outscoring them 18-9.
“I think the effort’s there,” Blue Jackets star defenseman Zach Werenski said. “Guys are working, but I think it’s just that unpredictability.”
Side note: It’s never good when players or coaches start using cumbersome, tongue-twisting words like “unpredictability,” and everybody listening knows why.
“We’re just not all on the same page right now, and I feel like when we were rolling, we were all on the same page,” Werenski said. “We were predictable for each other, all five guys on the ice as a unit for breakouts, neutral zone, frustrating teams offensively. We stuck to our game plan for 60 minutes.”
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Not so much now.
Bowness, sounding more like Dean Evason than ever, is now saying all the same stuff the guy he replaced once said before Evason and former assistant Steve McCarthy were fired Jan. 12 in a desperate mid-season coaching shakeup that worked until this skid.
Bowness went 17-2-4 in his first 23 games and the Blue Jackets clawed their way from the bottom of the Eastern Conference into a playoff spot, but key injuries and many of the same issues that got Evason fired have come roaring back to life.
Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Rick Bowness looks at his players in the second period of the NHL game at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
Too many turnovers. Inexplicable decisions with the puck. Not enough possession time in the offensive zone. Poor special teams play. Blown leads in third periods. It has all come flooding back in these past eight games along with injuries to Damon Severson, Mathieu Olivier and Dmitri Voronkov.
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Evason pulled the same alarms as Bowness, sounding much like his predecessor, Pascal Vincent, who sounded much like his predecessor, Brad Larsen, who was fired after just two seasons as John Tortorella’s replacement. Had former coach Mike Babcock lasted more than 78 days in the summer of 2023 and not violated players’ privacy by allegedly doom scrolling through their cellphones, he would’ve said the same stuff too.
The teams that got Larsen and Vincent fired were too young and afflicted with injuries to even dream about the playoffs, but Evason’s Blue Jackets came within two points a year ago and Bowness has them on the cusp now. They’re still one point out of third in the Metropolitan Division, miraculously, while tied at 88 points with three other teams vying for the East’s second playoff wild card.
The Washington Capitals have also joined the mix at 87 points, but opportunity still knocks for the Jackets. Will they eventually answer the door? Will Walter White of “Breaking Bad” be standing on the other side?
Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski (8) skates off the ice after losing to Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
“We’re not eliminated,” Werenski said. “We’re still in it. I believe in this group. I believe we can get it done, and it’s just doing it. I mean, we did it for two months. The last two weeks obviously haven’t gone our way, but it’s in the room and it’s on us to just pull it out and get it done.”
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Their next opportunity arrives April 7 in Detroit in a huge game at Little Caesar’s Arena against the Red Wings, one of the teams they’re tied with in points. Detrimental injuries have again thrown tacks into the path of the Jackets’ tires at the worst possible time, but their bigger issue is the all stuff Bowness and previous coaches have lamented.
The issues hindering these Blue Jackets now are the same that have kept them out of the playoffs since 2020. They’ve gotten a new president/general manager in Don Waddell, who has overturned much of the roster, but not all of it.
Columbus Blue Jackets center Cole Sillinger (4) reacts as he falls to the ice in the third period of the NHL game at Nationwide Arena on Saturday, April 4, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio.
The Jackets had a similar late swoon last season, forcing them to put together a six-game winning streak that fell just short, and what’s happening now is like Deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once quipped.
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“We’re a (go north), hard-skating, pressure team,” Bowness said. “If you turn the puck over as much as we did (against the Jets), you’re on your heels all the time.”
That’s no way to go through life in the NHL, as the Blue Jackets know too well, and there’s only five games left to change the narrative.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets shut down by Winnipeg Jets in familiar ways