Columbus Defenseman Zach Werenski - "We're working at it, we're watching a lot of video on it"
Werenski was asked about the penalty kill and the recent struggles with that unit. He says, "That's a tough question. We've watched a lot of video on it recently, we've gone over it a ton. I don't really think we're doing anything differently. I think overall, maybe we have to dig in a little bit more, as in the four guys that are out there, and just get the job done, whatever it takes. It's hard to put your finger on one thing. We watch a lot of video, we've tried to clean up the mistakes. Seems like we clean up one of the mistakes and then something else happens, or something else breaks down and it's in our net that way." He goes on to say, "I feel like right now it's just these little mistakes, these one or two mistakes a kill, and it's ending up in our net. Where I feel like early in the season, if we made one mistake we'd kind of reset and not let a second mistake beat us. Where right now it just seems like letting two, three, four mistakes beat us, and it's in our net. We're working at it, we're watching a lot of video on it, obviously, it's been hurting our team lately. Just trying to get better at it and learn and hopefully stop the bleeding here moving forward."
The Columbus penalty kill was at one point ranked 3rd in the NHL. Currently, it's ranked 26th at 76.2%, and that's just not going to get it done. The hope was that when the injuries calmed down and the Jackets got some guys back, the PK would find its way again, but that hasn't been what's happened. They've given up 4 power-play goals since coming back from the break, and have given up 10 power-play goals in the last 7 games. Thats abysmal.
For the full interview, you can find that below.
What's Next - The Blue Jackets travel to San Jose to play the Sharks on Saturday night.
More From THN Columbus
Join Jason Newland's Columbus Blue Jacket page on Bunches, a new app that connects sports fans. Also, you can watch a new YouTube game show about the Blue Jackets, Around the Fifth Line.