Out Of Gas . . .

By: Jeff Little • January 4th, 2009

Remember that purring car I wrote about last night? Well, it ran out of gas tonight in a 5 – 2 loss to St. Louis. Zero even strength goals by the Blues. We were a step slow all night, and the Blues came out with high intensity (and a substantial number of cheap shots). That led to 10 Blues power plays, and they cashed in on 4 of them. Add a shorthanded goal, and voila — 5 goals on special teams.

We were clearly fatigued, and were sloppy with the puck, particularly in our own zone. St. Louis moved the puck quickly on the power play, and we couldn’t keep up. Legs were dead.

Here are the simple +/- for the night:

– Discipline — The one thing we could not do tonight was spend much time on the box. The one thing St. Louis has done well all year is the power play, and we handed it to them on a silver platter.

–Puck Control — Our fatigue showed up in sloppiness, bad decisions and missed connections. As sharp as we were last night, we were bad tonight.

- Special Teams — We scored one goal just as penalty expired, and gave up one just as PP started, so not quite as bad as numbers, but we needed to be on top of our game, and we weren’t.

+ Individual Efforts — Despite taking a few penalties, Commodore was a huge presence. Dorset played solid, for the most part. Peca was active, but missed some golden opportunities.

Disappointing, but the stars were aligned for this kind of thing. Unlike some prior games this year, we had the desire, but just had nothing left in the tank. No point in recriminations. We are still 3 – 1 on the trip, get a couple of days of rest, and will come out strong against Detroit on Tuesday night.

Go Jackets!!

About

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A native of the SF Bay Area, my first exposure to hockey was the SF/Oakland/California Golden Seals, including Charlie Finley and the white skates. Fast forward to the late 1980's when Gretzky and the Kings came up to the Bay Area for an exhibition game at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, for which we had glass seats. I was at the first San Jose Sharks game in the Cow Palace, and followed them for their first few pathetic years, before moving to Columbus in 1994. I attended the first pro-NHL rally downtown, and have been a season ticket holder since Day 1, wife & I are active in the Jacket Backers, and son is an avid fan as well. I cover the Jackets for Inside Hockey, and contribute regularly to a variety of hockey sites. I maintain contact with the Jackets organization, and like to dig into stories, bringing a fresh, and sometimes irreverent perspective to hockey.

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There Are 3 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by chunx on 4 January 2009:

    yea the CBJ really dropped another turd against a lower team as always…

    4 PP goals against
    1 SH goal against

    wow…

    poor mason… i feel bad for the guy… you cant blame him on this night…

    nice to see mayorov gets some ice time… he didnt look out of place…

    lets just get home and get some rest and turn in some good practice and who knows maybe the hockey gods will shine upon us and chimmer and OKT and raffi will be able to come back from injury… boller too… its gonna be interesting to see what happens next with the roster…

  2. Comment by Rick on 4 January 2009:

    Not an excuse, but 3 games in 4 days with the depleted line-up that we have. In some ways, I’m surprised it wasn’t worse.

  3. Comment by JAL on 4 January 2009:

    We are going to have games like this.

    Look at it this way–as bad as things went, if we had just kept the penalties to our usual 3 or 4, we probably win the game.

    Worst we can do on this trip is be .500 and still very much in playoff hunt. With majority of remaining games at home, guys poised to come off the IR, and some intriguing trade prospects, it is not a gloomy picture right now.

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