Blue Jackets suffer through another third-period meltdown
The season half-over and the Jackets remain a few points and a million miles away from a playoff spot
A year go, just about, the Blue Jackets played their 41st game of the 2024-25 season. It was at PPG Paints Arena, where the Jackets scored twice in the third period and came from behind to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2, in a shootout. Imagine that.
You might remember the game for one of two reasons: The injury to top-line center Sean Monahan, who was crosschecked in the back by Kris Letang (Monahan went on to miss two months with a wrist injury), or the fact that the Jackets won in Pittsburgh for the first time since 2015.
At season's midway last year, the Jackets were:
- 18-17-6 for 42 points, with 14 regulation wins and a goal differential of minus-7.
- In fourth place in the Metropolitan Division.
- Holding down the No. 2 wild-card spot in the East, which is to say there were seven teams with a better record in the conference.
Sunday afternoon, the Blue Jackets played their 41st game of the 2025-26 season at Nationwide Arena. The Jackets were in control from the middle of the first period through the middle of the second. They led 3-1 after one and 4-2 after two – and then they blew a third-period lead and lost in OT. That is how you will remember this game, I imagine. Or, do they blur together now?
The Jackets have blown three third-period leads in three games against the hated Penguins this season – but, then, they've blown a lot of third-period leads to a lot of other teams, too. They've blown 12 third-period leads this season. It is the most significant trait of the first half of their season. It is not becoming.
Sunday, the Penguins scored a power-play goal early in the third. They scored six-on-five with 12.8 seconds remaining in regulation. Sidney Crosby provided the coup de gras when he jumped off the bench behind the play, took a pass from Erik Karlsson, put a move on Jackets goaltender Jet Greaves and slid a nifty, little backhand through Greaves' legs. The final score was 5-4.
At season's midway this year, the Jackets are:
- 18-16-7 for 43 points, with 11 regulation wins and a goal differential of minus-10.
- In last place in the Metro and last place in the East.
- Five points out of a wild-card spot, which is to say there are 15 teams in the conference with a better record.
- Facing the formidable task of jumping nine teams to get their hands on the No. 2 wild card, which is to say they're going to need a lot of teams to tumble in the standings to have a chance.
Pause for a second here, and look at the two sets of bullet points. Some of the numbers – record, points, goal diff, and so forth – are nearly identical. The problem is in the parity of Eastern Conference generally, and the Metro specifically, this year.
Are the Jackets within striking distance of a playoff spot? Yes. Would a heater to two put them right there in the mix? Yes. Can they jump nine teams? ...
Man, that's a tough ask. The way they've handled third periods, do you trust them to have the mental toughness to win a race for a wild card?
Where's the fire?
A man on an island
Greaves has played in 12 of the past 13 games and, over this stretch, he has a 2.33 goals-against average and a .924 save percentage. Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason started Greaves in back-to-back games for a pair of weekend matinees. It's not the first time Greaves has pulled such double duty, and it won't be the last.
Greaves was terrific on Saturday – he was the No. 1 star in a 5-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres.
Greaves was terrific on Sunday – the Jackets were outshot 32-13 over the last 40 minutes of regulation. The shot attempts over the last two periods were 67-28. Greaves' teammates melted down in front of him – and he made 38 saves and managed to salvage a point for the Jackets.
Meanwhile, Elvis Merzlikins sits. Why? Because he has some of the worst numbers in the league – a 4.04 goals-against average and an .877 save percentage. It seems that Evason would rather take the risk of grinding down Greaves than giving Merzlikins minutes. Evason explained that part of his thinking is that Greaves' AHL career, which comes with spurts of concentrated work, prepares him to carry the mail in the NHL.
"Being in the AHL, you play three in three (three games in three days) and we put him on the spot last year (down the stretch)," Evason said. "Yes, (AHL experience) was a factor. He's comfortable with it, which is the most important thing."
Last season, the Jackets were desperate for a consistent goaltending before Greaves was called up for the stretch drive – and excelled. This season, Greaves is 12-11-7 with a .910 and a 2.64. He doesn't have any help behind him and, on days like Sunday, he has no help behind him and none in front of him, either.
Werenski speaks here
Captain Boone Jenner, new Jacket Mason Marchment and assistant captain Zach Werenski spoke to reporters after the game. (And, of course, Evason.)
I'll put Werenski's remarks here as I find him to be the most thoughtful and the least rote.
On energy, and how to get it back:
"I think just being vocal. Even the guys that aren't that aren't the most vocal guys. Like, a guy blocks a shot, then get up on the bench and bang your stick on the boards. Tap the shin pads. Just little things throughout the game that can get your bench alive. I also think (about) playing with confidence.
"Like, I think the first half of the game, we're making plays. We have O-zone chances, we're scoring goals and ... I know we have the lead and you don't want to turn pucks over, but sometimes making a play is the right play. I feel like sometimes we chip pucks out and chip 'em in and we're just giving the other team the puck sometimes. 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 that can make plays and I feel like sometimes when we get a lead, we just resort to playing almost too simple, and just giving the puck to the other team."
"I feel like when we have energy and our bench is alive and we play in waves, we're a really good hockey team. But sometimes in games, our energy can dip a little and give the other teams life. I don't know what causes it. Obviously, that second goal ... we made a mistake and kind of gave them the second one, but we're still fine – it's a 4-2 game going into the third, at home, in front of a great crowd – to get our energy back. It's definitely tough. But I guess the silver lining is we've been getting a lot of points of late, and that's better than losing in regulation. We've got a good road trip coming up. It definitely sucks, but we'll move on."
On the Jackets' delay in leaving the bench after Crosby's game-winning goal in overtime:
"I heard a lot of guys saying maybe it was (offside). We didn't see a replay, so I figured we might as well ask so we could see, just to be safe. Then we saw it on (Jody) Shelley's (monitor between the benches) and we saw it was on."
On the disappearance of puck support as the game wore on.
"I think it all kind of works together. Like, it starts on the forecheck. If our forwards forecheck, when we're not playing with energy or playing with confidence, with our D, our gaps, are bad. And we're not keeping pucks in and trying to keep the puck alive. It comes through the neutral zone and it comes into our zone, and we're not connected at all. I feel like it's for the right reasons. If we go back for the puck and our forwards are not near us, it's probably because they think we're going to rim it or flip it out – and that's a good play when you're up a goal. But we have to get more connected. It's just keep playing our game for three full periods. ... When we're on, like we were in the first half of the game, we're connected in all three zones. We're pinching down, we're reloading above us. We have a lot of confidence. We're helping our forwards forecheck. They're doing their work and we're putting our work in. It just bleeds through the whole 200 feet of ice."
Time for an airing of grievances?
The Jackets will pack up and fly to the West Coast Monday. They're in San Jose Tuesday night, in Vegas Thursday night, in Colorado Saturday night and they wrap up a four-game roadie in on Sunday.
Evason: "We've got to find a way to put it behind us, gain that energy that we know we can play with. It'll probably be good that we're out on the road. We can get together and grind and fight together to try to get wins.
I'm feeling a team dinner, perhaps with a vein of Festivus, is in the offing. We shall see. When teams have a collective airing in a private room at an expensive restaurant on the road and then go on a hot streak, we usually hear about such things. When they do the dinner and they don't go on a hot streak, we usually don't hear about it.
The Jackets have nine points (4-1-1) in the last six games. That's not bad. One good sign is their penalty kill, which was terrible, and shrank their margin for error to nil earlier in the season, is perking up. They've killed off 23 of their last 26 penalties.
They're still in last place in the East.
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Michael Arace
