Familiar script: Blue Jackets fall behind early, suffer second straight shutout

New York Times

07-04-2025

The Columbus Blue Jackets continue to fall behind and chase games. And now the Jackets are back in a scoring funk where they don't create many scoring chances, much less get one past the goaltender.
It's as if the club that was so vivacious and dangerous in the first five months of the season — quite possibly the best story in the NHL this season — has gone missing.
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On Sunday, the Blue Jackets were shut out 4-0 by the Ottawa Senators before 15,616 at the Canadian Tire Centre, further damaging their faint playoff hopes. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Blue Jackets were blanked 5-0 by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
That's the second time this season, and the seventh time in franchise history, the Blue Jackets have been shut out in consecutive games. But that's not the ugliest of numbers: in their last 15 games, the Blue Jackets have been shut out six times and have just four wins (4-10-1).
The free fall started right after the Blue Jackets beat the Detroit Red Wings on March 1 in an outdoor game in Ohio Stadium. Since then, they've mostly gone missing.
'The outdoor game and before that, everything was great,' said Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins, who came into the game in relief of starter Daniil Tarasov in the first period. 'This is hockey. Sometimes things don't work like you want them to, and sometimes they're even better than you'd expect. Some nights we score eight, some nights we score none. We have to stick together and work the problem out.'
Dating back to a 7-3 loss to Colorado on Thursday in Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets have allowed 14 unanswered goals, matching a franchise record that was established in the dark ages of the franchise (Feb. 18-23, 2003). Their current scoreless streak sits at 152 minutes, 4 seconds.
'We're not scoring goals,' Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason said. 'It just gets magnified when you get down, because you're pressing even harder, and when you're not having success and you're not scoring goals and you're pressing, it's not a good recipe.'
We're on Gaud's time ⏰#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/Ag8MFlENYk
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) April 6, 2025
The Blue Jackets fell behind on Sunday only 2:24 into the game when Senators forward Adam Gaudette took advantage of a huge gap defensively to beat Tarasov with a wrister from the high slot of the rush.
Barely two minutes later, at 4:26, the lead grew to 2-0 when Tarasov stopped a Claude Giroux shot but left it on the doorstep for Nikolas Matinpalo, whose first NHL goal may be the easiest of his career. There were no Blue Jackets around to clear the crease, much less battle with Matinpalo.
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One more Blue Jackets tendency that has changed dramatically of late: Evason, who has said he doesn't like to pull goaltenders from starts, has now done exactly that twice in three games.
Merzlikins was pulled from the loss to Colorado after he splintered his stick on the net after allowing a third-period goal, and Tarasov was pulled after Matinpalo tucked home the rebound.
Tarasov, who stopped four of six shots in only 4:26, endured the earliest pull of his career and the second-quickest hook the NHL has seen this season. Only twice in Blue Jackets franchise history has a goaltender been pulled earlier in the game, and both times it happened to Steve Mason, once in 2009-10 and once the following season.
'It's never one person's fault, and it obviously looks like that when a goaltender gets pulled,' Evason said. 'We certainly don't want to do that. Both of those goals were team goals. But we made a decision to try something, and obviously, it didn't work.'
The only bright spot for the Blue Jackets was Merzlikins, who has struggled mightily in recent starts, but was strong in his first relief outing of the season. He stopped 22 of 23 shots the rest of the way, giving the Blue Jackets ample time to work their way back into it.
Evason has been patient with his forward lines all season, but he went to the mixer on Sunday for a second straight game. Center Adam Fantilli was elevated to the top line between wingers Dmitri Voronko and Kirill Marchenko, while center Sean Monahan skated with Boone Jenner to his left and Kent Johnson to his right. Yegor Chinakhov, a healthy scratch in the previous six games, was back in the lineup, too, with veteran Zach Aston-Reese sitting as a healthy scratch.
The changes didn't work. Columbus created just 10 high-danger chances.
The Blue Jackets are among the league leaders in two completely disparate categories. They've scored six or more goals in 14 games, more than any other NHL club. They've also now been shut out nine times this season, second only to Nashville. Go figure.
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At this point, with six games remaining in the season, it would take a miracle for the Blue Jackets to reach the postseason. It might take a few miracles, actually, as the Jackets would need the teams ahead of them to simply collapse in the final two weeks of the season.
One number that hasn't changed lately: the Blue Jackets are 1-10 in the second of back-to-back games. They have one more next weekend (Saturday and Sunday) against the Washington Capitals.
'We have to have a belief that if we get on a roll and get on a run, we'll be a good spot at the end of the year,' Evason said. 'We have no question that everyone's competing. I don't care who it is … Elvis, Tarasov … they're competing. Every guy on the team is battling to try to win hockey games. We have no concerns over that.'
(Photo of Daniil Tarasov: Marc DesRosiers / Imagn Images)