Alexander Nikishin scored a shorthanded goal to make it 3-0 not even 13 minutes into the game. By the time the first period was over, the Hurricanes had three goals. The Blue Jackets had two shots on goal. <\/p>\n
The first period set the tone for how the rest of the game went. The Blue Jackets\u2019 passes were broken up. Their rush attempts were constantly pressured throughout the night. It was a clinic of a performance by the Hurricanes thanks to the way they started the game.<\/p>\n
Franchise Futility in Shots<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets finished the night with just 11 shots on goal. They had two in the first, four in the second and five in the third. There was simply no room out there to generate much of anything.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets\u2019 11 shots on goal now becomes part of their history. It marks the second-fewest shots in a game in franchise history. The fewest happened in 2003 when they had 10 shots on goal in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. <\/p>\n
Blue Jackets\u2019 defensemen accounted for eight of their 11 total shots on goal. Kirill Marchenko, Boone Jenner and Miles Wood each had one shot and were the only forwards to register a shot on goal. Denton Mateychuk had two shots and scored the only Blue Jackets\u2019 goal of the night.<\/p>\n
While the Hurricanes tend to do this sort of thing to a lot of their opponents, the Blue Jackets simply couldn\u2019t do much when they had the puck. Even with three power-play chances, they were swarmed when they had possession.<\/p>\n
Impact to the Playoff Race<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets\u2019 regulation loss means they will finish the night outside of the playoff picture. Both the Senators and Red Wings tied them in points but have games in hand and a tiebreaker edge.<\/p>\n
If there is a silver lining in all of this, it\u2019s that the Blue Jackets with six games remaining are one point out of a playoff spot in the Metro. If you would have told them that\u2019s where\u2019d they\u2019d be at the start of the season, chances are they would have taken that in a heartbeat. They also remain in contention in the wildcard although there\u2019s a lot more competition there now.<\/p>\n
The Penguins lost to the Lightning while the Flyers lost to the Red Wings. The Islanders did not play on Thursday night. <\/p>\n
As awful as that performance in Raleigh was, all the Blue Jackets can do is move past it and get ready for Saturday night\u2019s game at home against a desperate Winnipeg Jets team. <\/p>\n
The out-of-town scoreboard has been pretty favorable to the Blue Jackets this week. They\u2019ve lost six of their last seven games and remain in the thick of the playoff chase. It\u2019s now up to them to figure out their struggles and find a way to finish the season strong.<\/p>\n
The playoffs are still well within reach. But only if they start putting much better performances together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Nikishin scored a shorthanded goal to make it 3-0 not even 13 minutes into the game. By…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5107],"tags":[194,29,5176,5,195,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-537821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-hurricanes","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-carolinahurricanes","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hurricanes","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116338749853015895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537821","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=537821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}