BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 It\u2019s amazing the wild emotional swings a playoff-desperate club can experience this time of year.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Columbus Blue Jackets pulled off a stunning comeback in Detroit, and you wondered if maybe \u2014 just maybe \u2014 they could ride that euphoria to charge back into a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
Two nights later, the Blue Jackets were blanked by the Buffalo Sabres, and their chances of reaching the postseason became dramatically slimmer.<\/p>\n
The Sabres scored four third-period goals and pulled away for a 5-0 win before 19,070 in Key Bank Center, the fourth time \u2014 and the most inopportune time \u2014 the Blue Jackets have been shut out this season.<\/p>\n
Worse, the Jackets were shut out by Sabres goaltender Colten Ellis, a 25-year-old NHL rookie who has spent more time in the ECHL than the AHL so far in his pro career. Ellis made 37 saves for his first career NHL shutout.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir goalie stole the game for them tonight,\u201d Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. \u201cYou get that many chances, you think the puck\u2019s going to go in. It didn\u2019t go in for us tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a great hockey club over there. They didn\u2019t need many chances to score. But, again, give their goalie all the credit in the world. That second period was one of the best periods we played all year, and we still came out of it with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Had the Blue Jackets won, they would have taken over the Philadelphia Flyers for third place in the Metropolitan Division, after the Flyers lost in Detroit.<\/p>\n
But the loss, in conjunction with wins by the New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings, dropped the Blue Jackets to 11th in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
A playoff berth is not out of the question \u2014 stranger things, right? \u2014 but the Blue Jackets, with three games to go, now need to jump the Islanders and the Flyers to earn the third Metro spot. And Columbus\u2019 schedule for the final three games is brutal.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets, who are 2-7-1 in their last 10 games, have a back-to-back on Saturday (in Montreal) and Sunday (vs. Boston in Columbus) before ending the season vs. Washington on Tuesday in Columbus. That game seems likely to be a playing-out-the-string event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even know the math and what\u2019s exactly going on (with the standings) because, again, I\u2019ve got to worry about my own (stuff) and our own (stuff),\u201d Blue Jackets center Charlie Coyle said. \u201cWe just have to take care of that. We can\u2019t rely on the other teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coyle called himself out without prompting in his postgame comments with the media, as it was his third-period turnover that led to the Blue Jackets\u2019 unraveling.<\/p>\n
It was 1-0 when Coyle skated the puck through the neutral zone back toward the Blue Jackets\u2019 end of the ice, looking for a place to carry the puck away from pressure.<\/p>\n
Instead, Buffalo\u2019s Josh Doan stripped the puck from Coyle from behind and continued skating away from him, closing in on Blue Jackets goaltender Jet Greaves for the goal that made it 2-0 at 7:19 of the third.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy turnover there \u2026 we\u2019re a shot away (from tying it),\u201d Coyle said. \u201cIt\u2019s exactly what you don\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just in between what I was gonna do, and he had a good stick and good body position. That\u2019s something you can\u2019t afford to do. So that one\u2019s on me, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sabres went on to score two goals in a 25-second span later in the period to make it 4-0 at 13:46 of the third. A 196-foot empty-net goal by Rasmus Dahlin capped the scoring and brought the building to a deafening roar, with 3:05 remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The 2-0 goal) took a little bit out of us, yeah, it did,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cI mean, only because we know we had played so well and worked so hard to get that game. So, yeah, that was a tough one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, the Sabres\u2019 first-period goal stood as the game-winner. The Blue Jackets have scored only 16 goals during their 10-game nosedive.<\/p>\n
For a while, the chances and the shots had evaporated. Now the chances and shots are back, but the goals \u2014 at least on Thursday \u2014 were still missing. When the going got tough, the Blue Jackets forwards went into hiding, with slumps running up and down the lineup.<\/p>\n
Sean Monahan, Kent Johnson and Conor Garland are without a goal during the 2-7-1 skid. Coyle, Kirill Marchenko, Boone Jenner and Cole Sillinger have each scored one goal.<\/p>\n
Bowness basically bombed his lines before Tuesday\u2019s game in Detroit, but he\u2019s kept a blender on the bench, too. On Thursday, he went to it as early as the first period.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they weren\u2019t getting chances, then we\u2019d have to do something (more),\u201d Bowness said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting their looks. You know, they\u2019re just not going in for them. The forecheck was great tonight. The opportunities were there and the goalie beat us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the Blue Jackets are on borrowed time, needing a miracle over the next week to get into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust take care of the next shift, the next period,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I want us to focus on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be all mindset on Saturday night. That\u2019s all it is. It\u2019s not going to be about Xs and Os. It\u2019s about how hungry we are. And I know they\u2019ll answer the bell. We\u2019ll be there Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 It\u2019s amazing the wild emotional swings a playoff-desperate club can experience this time of year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-549247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116378445032083855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549247","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=549247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}