The Blue Jacket’s Streak is Over, But…

by Grant Burkhardt

After a month and a half, the Blue Jackets finally played a bad game. The 16-game win streak is over, ended by the Washington Capitals in a 5-0 rout. 

There isn’t that much to say about the actual game in D.C. from Thursday night. It was a bad one. The Capitals scored twice on Sergei Bobrovsky in the first period and always seemed in control – they were faster, pressed harder, and the Blue Jackets looked a step behind the whole night. Washington did the things that have made the Jackets difficult to play against – [a fast, relentless press, which opens shooting lanes] when the puck is turned over – and threw them off their rhythm. Gave ‘em a bit of their own medicine. 

It was bound to happen sometime, right? As inevitable as wins had seemed to become on this fun-as-hell run – CBJ hadn’t lost since the week of Thanksgiving, and had only lost in regulation once since Nov. 10 – the bad one was always as inevitable as a goal on that lethal power play.

The danger here, now, is in heightened expectations. The streak didn’t prove that the Jackets are unbeatable, merely that when they’re healthy and clicking they’re one of the NHL’s best teams. It established Sergei Bobrovsky as a goaltender who, if hot in the playoffs, can guide a team to a deep run. It gave this young group of players – average age 25, the youngest in the NHL – a chance to feel real stakes in the middle of a season, instead of being overwhelmed by playoff pressure when they feel it in the playoffs. It’s not the same as postseason play, but every night of this streak since the 7-1 drubbing of Pittsburgh has felt like a big deal.

And it reintroduced John Tortorella to the NHL’s big stage as a man who seems lighter on his feet and perhaps even a man who’s having fun (he started his post-loss press conference on Thursday night with “Shit, huh?”). Maybe being away from big, pressure-filled hockey situations like New York or Vancouver, where press conferences aren’t combed over like high school literature, has helped.

But expectation management is important now for Torts and the Jackets. The Rangers come to town Saturday night and then the Flyers visit Nationwide on Sunday. Two losses this weekend doesn’t suddenly make this Jackets team less than a real contender for the Eastern Conference title. Two wins confirms the previous 16 in a row weren’t a fluke. However, these next two home games are only the next tests in a long line of them between now and the end of the regular season. What we’ve learned from the most exhilarating six-week stretch in franchise history is that there’s more work to be done, more bumps in the long road, but that the foundation is here and ready to make a push for the playoffs.

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