The Blue Jackets lost to the Penguins last night 5-4 in overtime.
The Blue Jackets were up 4-1 on the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday and somehow let it slip away. The sad part of it, though, is that there wasn't a single person in that arena who thought they would actually win.
When the Pens scored to make it 4-2 with just over three minutes left in the second period, the arena, minus the "Penguins" fans, got eerily quiet. You could've heard a pin drop. And that's not an exaggeration. The silence was deafening.
It was just after the start of the third period that I put out the post below. You just knew it was coming.
The Blue Jackets did, in fact, collapse and lose the game to the Penguins. What in the world is happening with the CBJ?
Who is to blame?
Many fans are blaming coaching, and while I get it, the coaches can't beat the player into submission and make them play.
It's on the players. The players are the ones who go out and score goals, not the coaches. The coach's job is to put a plan in place to make the players successful. Against Buffalo, that worked to perfection. Against Pittsburgh, it did for a hot minute, until it didn't.
The coaches can't get the players all worked up and ready to play the next shift; that's on the players.
Boone Jenner said this postgame, "For whatever reason, I think our energy dropped, and when your energy drops, your play drops, and you just kind of sit back. That's what happened. We just kind of watched them take it to us."
As the kids would say today, the Penguins put B.T.A to the Jackets for two straight periods.
Zach Werenski said of energy, "I feel like energy can come from guys playing with confidence, making plays. It's contagious. I don't want to say get reckless with it, but we have a lot of guys who can make plays here, and sometimes when we get a lead, we just resort to almost playing too simple and just giving the puck to the other team, and obviously, good teams make you pay."
Energy is the theme coming from the leaders of this team. Whose job is it to "pump" up the team, though? Many will say it's the captain's job, but I disagree, especially in Boone's case. Werenski is not a rah-rah guy either, and that's fine. But someone needs to be the vocal one on the bench.
But being vocal doesn't mean the player's energy level will increase. Energy has to come from within each player, and it's not something that can be faked. You can fake positivity, you can fake just about anything else, but you can't fake energy. If the players aren't physically ready to play the game, again, that's sort of on them. Why don't they have energy?
Are they too tired in the third? Is it confidence? Who is to blame?
But let's not let the coaches off the hook.
Coaches like John Tortorella would yell and scream at the players in the locker room, and it didn't go over well with most guys, just ask Sergei Bobrovsky and Artemi Panarin, who openly said they hated it when he did that.
Young players, especially in today's generation, don't respond well to that type of coaching. I won't speculate on who's right or wrong, but it's just a matter of fact.
Dean Evason is a mixture of both, as he can let it rip and he can talk softly if needed. It's a coach's job to figure out how each player needs to be coached.
But coaches need to show some emotion and have energy, too. If a coach is fired up on the bench, that, in theory, could fire up the team, too. A fiery coach is usually a controversial one, but maybe that's what this team needs.
In the case of blowing leads, nearly every night, Evason needs to figure out what to say to these guys to get them to play the right way. Obviously, he's not telling them to "play it safe" or to take their foot off the gas when they get a lead, but whatever the coaches are telling them isn't working.
People are starting to call for the Evason's job, and while I won't say if they're right or wrong, you can feel it falling apart in front of him. The writing is on the wall. So, while it would be sad for a coach to get sacked after a season and a half, if it needs to happen, make it happen.
Hockey is a team sport, and that doesn't just fall on the players. The coaches are a part of the team too, so this needs to be figured out by everyone, including GM Don Waddell.
There needs to be something injected into this team to get them going. Yes, they've suffered way too many injuries, yet again this year, but at some point, they just need to accept the fact that they'll lose players to injury on almost a nightly basis.
Simply trading for Mason Marchment and finally trading disgruntled Yegor Chinakhov isn't going to do it. The team is technically still in a rebuild, so there will probably be more change, but if they don't start changing now, the Columbus Blue Jackets may have a full-on mutiny on their hands with the fans.
Yes, fans can be overdramatic, but they were told this team would be competitive this year (true or not), so they ate it up and believed it. The time is now, though. We are just about halfway through the season, and it's slipping away once again. It's time to act.
So, who's to blame? EVERYONE!
Up Next: The Blue Jackets travel to San Jose to take on the upstart Sharks on Tuesday.
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