Close, but not close enough.
That was the theme of the third period for the Blue Jackets in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators, as Columbus chased a one-goal deficit throughout the final 20 minutes and couldn’t get the puck past goaltender Anton Forsberg to tie things up.
Despite trailing by a goal, the Jackets finished the third period with their lowest shot total of the game — just 10 shots on goal, compared to 14 in the first period and 12 in the second. A multitude of scoring chances went just wide of the net or were blocked by the Senators as Columbus searched for an answer to Tim Stützle’s go-ahead goal from late in the second period.
In the final 20 minutes, the Jackets out-attempted Ottawa 23-13, including five high-danger scoring chances. But though they came close, they couldn’t get close enough.
“For one goal, we had a lot of scoring chances,” Jakub Voracek said. “We’ve gotta get better at that. Sometimes you have games like that, when nothing goes in, but we’ve scored five goals over our last three games. We’ve gotta get better.”
The Senators opened the scoring at 7:59 of the first period on a point shot from defenseman Artem Zub that got through traffic — appearing to deflect off the stick of Oliver Bjorkstrand — and found twine behind Merzlikins.
It took nearly the entire rest of the period, but Columbus scored the equalizer with just 34 seconds remaining in the period to take some momentum into intermission. Voracek’s pass from the left circle landed right on Sean Kuraly’s stick in front of Forsberg, and all Kuraly had to do was tap it home for his sixth goal of the year.
“I don’t think it could’ve been in a better spot,” Kuraly said. “(That’s) a spot I’d like to see myself get to a little more often. It was a good play by Jake. I suspect he did that on purpose.”
The two teams traded scoring chances through a relatively sedate second period — relatively sedate, that is, until Stützle caught Zach Werenski flat-footed in the neutral zone, deked around him and finished a backhander over the outstretched arm of Merzlikins.
The single breakdown was all it took to put the game out of reach. The Jackets spent the remaining 24 minutes searching for an answer, and Forsberg didn’t allow them one.
“Just shows you can hold them to not so many good chances and every once in a while, a good player or a good team will capitalize on a breakdown,” Kuraly said. “Elvis made some great saves tonight. I thought our team played well. But this is the best league in the world for a reason. Guys can make plays.”
Patrik Laine, Oliver Bjorkstrand struggle offensively
Patrik Laine, widely regarded as one of the better shooters in the NHL, didn’t record a shot on goal until there were under two minutes left to play. Bjorkstrand had just one shot attempt, which was blocked, through the first two periods and finished with two shots on goal and four attempts blocked.
“There’s some key guys here that weren’t giving enough,” Larsen said, and reiterated later. It doesn’t take a large leap to understand that Larsen was talking about Laine and Bjorkstrand, though they were far from the only players who struggled.
But in a game where the Jackets couldn’t convert on their offensive pressure, shooters like Laine and Bjorkstrand become even more valuable. And Sunday, it wasn’t until it was late, too late to change the outcome of the game, that they started to generate scoring chances.
“I want to see more shooting from our team,” Larsen said. “That’s the one thing we talked about in the second period is playing more direct, funneling pucks. We have to plays at the beginning of the third period, we get right down to the goal mouth there and we don’t even get a chance. We’re trying to tic-tac-toe it in.
“We’re not there right now. That’s not how we’re gonna score goals. We needed to generate more shots when those opportunities came and that’s something I believe we didn’t do.”
