{"id":526968,"date":"2026-03-28T04:14:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/526968\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T04:14:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:14:21","slug":"rick-bowness-says-columbus-blue-jackets-must-get-nasty-for-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/526968\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Bowness says Columbus Blue Jackets must get ‘nasty’ for goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time for the Blue Jackets<\/a> to get greasy to secure a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

After overwhelming the Montreal Canadiens on March 26 and still losing<\/a> 2-1 at Bell Centre to finish a frustrating 1-2-0 road trip, they\u2019re back on the postseason bubble and clinging to third in the Metropolitan Division while staring down a tough closing slate.<\/p>\n

More: Columbus Blue Jackets can’t convert vs Montreal Canadiens: Takeaways<\/a><\/p>\n

Losing defenseman Damon Severson<\/a> to an upper-body injury won\u2019t help, but a bigger issue is now hovering over the Blue Jackets (38-23-11): They\u2019re not scoring enough goals<\/a> despite controlling most matchups. Because of that, veteran coach Rick Bowness<\/a> is pointing them in a new direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re playing really solid without the puck, right?\u201d Bowness said. \u201cThat\u2019s not our issue. Our issue right now is, clearly, trying to score some more goals. We could\u2019ve easily won all three of those [road] games. It wasn\u2019t good enough, what we were doing offensively, so that\u2019s my job is to identify that and give them more instructions on how we\u2019re going to score more goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cListen,<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, to get into the playoffs, it\u2019s hard to get in, and when you get in the playoffs, it\u2019s harder,\u201d Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the plan?<\/p>\n

Think of it like sandpaper grades. Bowness feels the Jackets are using one that\u2019s too fine, like the kind you\u2019d pick to prep a coffee table for staining. He wants a much rougher grade, extra course, for the end of the regular season and playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, to get into the playoffs, it\u2019s hard to get in, and when you get in the playoffs, it\u2019s harder,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cIt\u2019s harder because you\u2019re playing against a really good team every night. You\u2019re not playing a first-place team [and then] a last-place team. It\u2019s none of that. Every night, you\u2019re playing against a good team that has time to make adjustments to everything you\u2019re doing, so the next 10 games are going to be the hardest 10 games we\u2019ve played all year. And when we get in, and we\u2019re going to get in, it\u2019s going to get harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

To heck with the analytics battle, too.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/p>\n

Blue Jackets center Charlie Coyle shoots and scores against the Canucks on Jan. 15.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets are winning that regularly now, which is good, but games aren\u2019t won or lost on theoretical expected goals. They\u2019re won by scoring actual goals, which the Jackets didn\u2019t do nearly enough on their last road trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to be harder, offensively, to play against,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to hide behind analytics and say, \u2018Expected goals-for and shots.\u2019 That\u2019s not winning games for us. So, that\u2019s my job is to give them the direction on how we\u2019re going to score more goals and be harder to play against.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term he prefers is \u201cnasty,\u201d but greasy, grimy and\/or gritty also fit the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone we play now, because of the respect our team has earned, we\u2019re getting everyone\u2019s \u2018A\u2019 game, and it\u2019ll get harder in the next 10 games because now it\u2019s life-or-death for a lot of teams,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got that third spot right now. It\u2019s up to us to keep it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger<\/a> can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com<\/a> and @BrianHedger.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n

1 \/ 0<\/p>\n

Blue Jackets battle Montreal<\/p>\n

Montreal Canadiens goalie Jakub Dobes (75) celebrates the win against the Columbus Blue Jackets with teammate forward Zack Bolduc (76) at the Bell Centre.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness says team will make playoffs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s time for the Blue Jackets to get greasy to secure a playoff spot. After overwhelming the Montreal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5103],"tags":[3644,265,8744,2564,5,264,21,5147,4,12090],"class_list":{"0":"post-526968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-canadiens","10":"tag-damon-severson","11":"tag-goals","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-montreal","14":"tag-montreal-canadiens","15":"tag-montrealcanadiens","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-rick-bowness"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116304863680880103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526968","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=526968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}