{"id":396893,"date":"2026-01-08T04:33:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/396893\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T04:33:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:33:44","slug":"blue-jackets-drop-second-in-a-row-to-open-road-trip-against-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/396893\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jackets drop second in a row to open road trip against Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blue Jackets’ spiral to the bottom of the NHL’s Eastern Conference continued Jan. 6 at SAP Center with a 4-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks<\/a> to start a four-game road trip.<\/p>\n

More: Columbus Blue Jackets sign defenseman Egor Zamula to one-year contract<\/a><\/p>\n

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Despite getting a strong effort from goalie Jet Greaves <\/a>(31 saves) in his seventh straight start and outshooting the Sharks 18-9 in the third period, the Jackets dropped their second straight game while struggling to beat Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic (34 saves).<\/p>\n

\"Jan<\/p>\n

Jan 6, 2026; San Jose, California, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets center Adam Fantilli (19) takes a shot on goal against San Jose Sharks goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic (33) in the first period at SAP Center at San Jose. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Zach Werenski<\/a> and Sean Monahan<\/a> scored the only goals for the Blue Jackets (18-17-7), who pulled within a goal at 3-2 on Monahan’s goal late in the third before the Sharks sealed the win on empty-net goals by Mario Ferraro and Macklin Celebrini.<\/p>\n

Former Blue Jackets center Alex Wennberg<\/a> factored into three goals for the Sharks (21-18-3), setting up two with assists and scoring a power-play goal for a 2-0 lead in the second. Pavol Regenda and Zack Ostapchuk scored the other two San Jose goals.<\/p>\n

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Shots finished even at 36-36 after the Sharks finished the second period with a 17-6 edge and the Blue Jackets finished the third with a nine-shot edge.<\/p>\n

\"Jan<\/p>\n

Jan 6, 2026; San Jose, California, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski (8) celebrates with the bench after scoring a goal in the second period at SAP Center at San Jose. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Ostapchuk gave the Sharks breathing room on a breakaway goal with 4:44 left in the third, putting them up 3-1, but Monahan made it 3-2 on the next shift to give the Blue Jackets a late push that was quickly stomped out. Ferraro’s empty-netter from his own zone made it 4-2, Celebrini’s into an empty net made it 5-2 and the Sharks won for the fourth time in the past five games.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets, who played without forward Mason Marchment<\/a> (upper-body injury) play the next three games of the trip with three tough matchups Jan. 8 at the Vegas Golden Knights, Jan. 10 at the Colorado Avalanche and Jan. 11 at the Utah Mammoth.<\/p>\n

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Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger<\/a>\u00a0can be reached at\u00a0bhedger@dispatch.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0@BrianHedger.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets drop second in a row to open road trip against Sharks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blue Jackets’ spiral to the bottom of the NHL’s Eastern Conference continued Jan. 6 at SAP Center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5108],"tags":[5807,5631,3644,5180,144,897,230,5179,2217,25435,5,693,501,814,862,4,1265,168,1945,3154,39,2566,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-396893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-alex-nedeljkovic","9":"tag-alex-wennberg","10":"tag-blue-jackets","11":"tag-bluejackets","12":"tag-colorado-avalanche","13":"tag-columbus","14":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","15":"tag-columbusbluejackets","16":"tag-eastern-conference","17":"tag-egor-zamula","18":"tag-hockey","19":"tag-jet-greaves","20":"tag-macklin-celebrini","21":"tag-mario-ferraro","22":"tag-mason-marchment","23":"tag-nhl","24":"tag-pavol-regenda","25":"tag-san-jose-sharks","26":"tag-sean-monahan","27":"tag-utah-mammoth","28":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","29":"tag-zach-werenski","30":"tag-zack-ostapchuk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115857614742294385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}