The Columbus Blue Jackets’ search for goals grew more urgent Thursday night, as the Tampa Bay Lightning handed Columbus a 3-1 loss at Nationwide Arena — the Blue Jackets’ third straight defeat and another night in which a rested home team could not finish its chances. Brandon Hagel scored twice and added an assist for Tampa Bay, according to NHL.com’s game recap, while Columbus managed a single power-play goal and fell to 7-10-0 on the season.
Hagel opened the scoring at 2:57 of the first period, converting from in front after controlling a big rebound off a shot from the high slot by Charle-Edouard D’Astous, NHL.com reported. Columbus answered at 12:20 of the first, when Matthew Knies tapped in a backdoor pass from Kent Johnson on the power play — Knies’ first goal since he scored twice in the season opener against Buffalo on Oct. 1, according to NHL.com.
That was the end of the Columbus scoring. Jake Guentzel, playing his 700th NHL game, restored Tampa Bay’s lead at 1:06 of the third period, taking a backhand pass from Hagel in the left circle and scoring on a shot that trickled through the pads of goaltender Jet Greaves, NHL.com reported. Hagel made it 3-1 at 7:41 of the third, scoring from a sharp angle below the right circle for his fifth goal in his past three games.
Greaves made 25 saves for Columbus, while Tampa Bay backup Dennis Hildeby stopped 28 shots for the Lightning (13-4-2), who were playing the second night of a back-to-back after an 8-3 win at Buffalo on Wednesday, according to NHL.com. Nikita Kucherov added two assists for Tampa Bay, which is 6-1-2 in its past nine games.
The numbers behind the loss tell the larger story of Columbus’ season so far. The Blue Jackets have scored five goals in their past four games, according to NHL.com, and the Columbus Dispatch reported the loss kept Columbus in last place in both the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference, with a home crowd of 15,101 sending the team off with a small chorus of boos.
“Until we figure out how to put the puck in the net, we won’t win any games,” Blue Jackets defenseman Ivan Provorov told NHL.com. “I don’t think it’s our attitude, it’s not how we come out or anything like that. We just have to find a way to put the puck in the net. I mean, we scored one tonight, we scored one the game before, we scored only two the game before that. We’ve got to find a way to score more greasy goals, more traffic, deflections, whatever it takes.”
Knies was blunt about the third-period sequence that decided the game. “I made a bad play, turned it over with some of the best players on the ice, and they capitalized,” he told NHL.com. “So, then we’re chasing it for the rest of the way there. Just a really crappy third period by us.”
Columbus also played the night without its head coach. Rick Bowness missed the game due to an illness, and assistant coach Don Granato ran the bench, according to NHL.com. “There’s no hiding it,” Granato told NHL.com about the scoring difficulties. “That’s going to affect you psychologically when you know your margin is slight to begin with, and if you’re not scoring at all, then you know that becomes even tighter.”
Tampa Bay, by contrast, won short-handed. The Lightning were without defenseman Erik Cernak and forward Anthony Cirelli, each injured against Buffalo and listed as day-to-day by coach Jon Cooper, and forward Yanni Gourde did not play for maintenance, NHL.com reported. The Lightning used 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Columbus forward Sean Monahan left the game with an upper-body injury with 29 seconds remaining in the second period, according to NHL.com, adding an injury question to a team that can least afford one.
Hagel credited his goaltender for making the road win possible. “Sometimes you’re going to need your goalie,” Hagel told NHL.com. “He stood tall for us early in the first period and we were able to find one. Our goalie stood on his head, and when your goalie is standing on his head, you just want to push a little bit harder for him, and I think that’s what our guys did.”
For Columbus fans, the frustration is that the raw material does not look like a last-place team. The Blue Jackets have speed throughout the lineup — Cooper himself noted before leaving town that Columbus is “a rested team and they’ve got some fast players, pretty active ‘D’ back there,” he told NHL.com — but speed has not translated into traffic in front of opposing goaltenders or second-chance goals, the “greasy” scoring Provorov described.
What happens next comes quickly. The Blue Jackets host the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday, Nov. 14, their last home game before a four-game road trip, according to the Columbus Dispatch. A win would stop the slide at three and send Columbus on the road with something to build on; a fourth straight loss, with Monahan’s status uncertain, would deepen the hole in the Metropolitan standings barely a quarter of the way into the season.
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