Columbus Blue Jackets 2016-17

[IPv6Freely 2094]

13 minutes ago, Stewie said:

do we really need separate threads for each bit of Blue Jackets news?

Nope. Merging them.

[Kgbeast 195]

Washington Caps have destroyed Blackhawks 6-0 and pushed Jackets from #1 in the league, but only for an hour. With Bobrovsky still ill, Jackets have played what appears to be strategic game with yet another AHL goalie, Korpisalo who made a couple of good saves. They were able to cleanly defeat Tampa Bay 3-1 with the 3rd goal scored in the empty from the other side. Lightnings did make few big mistakes one of which resulted in goal and a couple that lost them some scoring chances.

[Kgbeast 195]

Congrats to Blue Jackets on a timely win against Carolina Hurricanes. 4:1, regulation win moves Jackets back in #1 spot shared with Washington Caps. Most importantly, Bobrovsky is back after a week long struggle with flu (just happened, today is my first back to normal day after my own flu week). Bob made 24 saves and allowed one ofrebound, top shelf goal. Dubinsky scored twice, Sedlack got one, and Boon Jenner had his third game in the row where he scored a goal. Plenty of work to be done still in order to tighten the team up for facing some tougher match ups, but overall a solid game.

[Kgbeast 195]

For the first time after the end of the 16-game winning streak, Jackets have won 2 games in the row (Hurricanes and Senators). Senators game was pretty interesting, high score (6-7) game with Korpisalo in net. Jackets had 2 beautiful breakaway goals in this game. One by Sedlack (4th goal from Jackets) and another one is the winning goal by Atkinson who picked up a rebound from high and wide shot against Jackets net by Eric Karlsson and  decked it all the way passed Mike Condon throwing himself clean in the net for a good measure as well. This was a trully exciting moment in Jackets team. Next stop is NY Islanders tonight. We'll see how they like Brooklyn.

 

[Kgbeast 195]

Wow... what a mess. CBJ vs. NYI today is yet another disappointing Blue Jackets game of this season. This was painful to watch for me, especially that Bob fell apart in the third and got chased out of the net after letting throug a couple of soft goals. I am ok with them loosing a game, but this was dreadful 2nd and 3rd period. I am glad for Islanders to grab a couple of points today. They have played very good and well deserved this win. 

Today's is a special day for Metropolitan Division. All 3 top performing teams today, came out flatfooted. Caps 3:0 shutout by Sens. Penguins... 3:0 shutout by Blues. At least Pens put up a good game and was not an embarrassment to watch. Good clean loss against a team that had a better day today. So luckily for Blue Jackets, no standings movement today. They got a free pass to remain within a game from the top spot today regardless of their dreadful performance.

[Kgbeast 195]

Yes again!!! You might ask yes what, cbj lost? Yes, they have played like a team for the first time since the streak end. This was a game of Jackets from December. Great chemistry and team spirit today. I do not care that they lost to Pens in overtime. Today, for the first time in at least a month, Jackets did their "100s" of fans proud. Bobrovsky with few nice moves as well is to me an icing on the cake I thought I will not see this season. All I can hope for is that this is how they will try to play from now on. I thought they could play a little more dirty by picking a fight in the third and forcing 4-on-4 which Pens are simply do not know what to do with, but karma can be a bitch, so I am also glad that they did not fall down to that level and do not have to worry about karma now. I must admit that Penguins have more skill than Jackets by a margin, but Jackets have something else this season.

[adam14 182]

Do you type just so you can read it out loud and hear yourself speak? 

[Kgbeast 195]

6 hours ago, adam14 said:

Do you type just so you can read it out loud and hear yourself speak? 

This helps me to practice communication skills. As of now the skills have plenty room for improvement, but I dedicate myself to get better. Your criticism is very important to this process. Please, do tell how you feel about my posts.

[Kgbeast 195]

Jackets have schooled Islanders in 7:0 win. First NHL SO for Korpisalo (congrats). I thought someone will get a hat trick, but as it is often with CBJ, they into sharing with team-mates. David Savard clearly saved at least a couple of certain goals, so Korpi owes him a beer for the shutout. Savard also scored in this game. It was nice to see how hard the whole team fought to the last second to ensure the shutout for Korpi.

This is a nice comeback from bye week for CBJ, but obviously it is not all about how well they perform, but also who they perform against; which, in this case, struggling Islanders who also had a supernatural letdown as puck would just get away from them all game long and nothing they could do came out right as they got outshot by a factor of 2 pretty much all game long.

[Kgbeast 195]

That was a 64 minutes of scoreless game between CBJ and MTL. With 1 minute left in overtime, after a questionable penalty, Habs have scored one on power play. Habs looked a touch better than Jackets most of the game. Even though, imo, Jackets edged in OT I must say, Habs deserved this win as narrow as it was and Jackets deserved the one point. Both teams played exceptional d-game and both goalies made some awesome saves.

[Kgbeast 195]

I am pretty impressed by the way CBJ structure their team... They give a good chance for new players to grow and shine. Yesterday's game was quite impressive win 3:0. Quincey had a good night playing D, Bob had a first back to back shutout. But I am most impressed with Bjorkstrand. His confidence level and shot technique is of a seasoned pro. Korpikoski still struggles with confidence though, but I think the team as it stands now has a pretty good go at a top playoff contender. We'll see, lots of hockey is left to be played still. 

 

[Neal 41]

On 3/6/2017 at 10:17 AM, Kgbeast said:

 Korpikoski still struggles with confidence though, 

 

I gotta disagree with you on that statement.  Having watched Korpikoski play for the Oilers for a year regularly and a handful of Dallas games this year, he doesn't struggle with confidence but rather a lack of skill.  It is a mystery to me how he is still employed by an NHL team.

[Kgbeast 195]

1 hour ago, Neal said:

I gotta disagree with you on that statement.  Having watched Korpikoski play for the Oilers for a year regularly and a handful of Dallas games this year, he doesn't struggle with confidence but rather a lack of skill.  It is a mystery to me how he is still employed by an NHL team.

I take that... I am not a Dallas watcher, but I saw him play a couple of games and that the conclusion I came to. It would suck if he is lack of skill, but will explain that they got him for a prospect. We'll see what happens once Calvert is back. 

[Kgbeast 195]

CBJ has defeated NJD in both of last 2 games. Bob is on 3rd back to back shutout. He is now on top in the league with won games, second in saving percentage and GA by a small margin to Dubnik. Bjorkstrand, continues to be impressive. 

[Kgbeast 195]

Jackets have clinched the playoff spot by getting 100 points. They are now the second team after Caps that have accomplished this. It is also only third time in franchise history they hit 100 points. The game against Devils was rather bizzare and disappointing for the Devils. 2 first goals against NJD were shorthanded goals one of which was a penalty shot by Sedlak  (his first in pros). Third goal was a penalty shot as well (by Dubinsky for Anderson). Fourth goal was an empty netter at the last minutes. 

Bob is another story. Over last two games he climbed to the top of the league with first in SP, GA, and Wins, not without "help" from Dubnik who had pretty bad last couple of games and dropped in stats quite a bit.

[krisdrum 233]

I was at game yesterday.  Really bizarre.  2 penalty shots, empty netter and basically an "own goal" off Schneider for the CBJ 4 tallies.  Devils 1 goal was reviewed for offsides and was borderline interference as Henrique crashed the net and Bob pretty hard.  NJD looked uninspired and CBJ looked TIRED.  Not a fan of either team, so that is my unbiased observation.  The rest of the game was not all that exciting.  Both teams were really struggling with creating offense that was meaningful.  It was almost like watching a tennis match back and forth between the dots.  Neither team was doing a particularly good job of getting the puck deep.  Always nice to see live hockey though. 

[crow93 12]

The two penalty shots was super interesting. Wonder when the last time that happened was?

[Kgbeast 195]

10 hours ago, krisdrum said:

I was at game yesterday.  Really bizarre.  2 penalty shots, empty netter and basically an "own goal" off Schneider for the CBJ 4 tallies.  Devils 1 goal was reviewed for offsides and was borderline interference as Henrique crashed the net and Bob pretty hard.  NJD looked uninspired and CBJ looked TIRED.  Not a fan of either team, so that is my unbiased observation.  The rest of the game was not all that exciting.  Both teams were really struggling with creating offense that was meaningful.  It was almost like watching a tennis match back and forth between the dots.  Neither team was doing a particularly good job of getting the puck deep.  Always nice to see live hockey though. 

Agree on TIRED... this is one of the games that needs to be watch of a dvr. The two goalies were the only guys on ice that was fresh and sharp. 100 points though 100 pints, so that was a reason enough for me to be happy yesterday.

[Kgbeast 195]

10 hours ago, crow93 said:

The two penalty shots was super interesting. Wonder when the last time that happened was?

Durring the game the commentators has looked it up and said it was the third time in nhl history when a team scored 2 penalty shots durring a game. Last time it happened was in 2009, Sharks against Caps. 1982 before that by Vancouver against Red Wings.

[Kgbeast 195]

Columbus played pretty sloppy game last night against Toronto... Is it possible that CBJ will have a "strategic" the rest of the season, where they will try get to the 4th spot instead of trying to get to the 1st and end up right where they are now? With current playoff format, the crapiest place to be is 2nd and 3rd, one of which is guaranteed to be sent packin'. 4th in Metro, has a good chance of advancing pretty far....

Either way, I hope Bjorkstrand will be able to recover after last night hit by Polak, and participate in playoff games, how many or few of them will there be. I grew to be quite a fan of this guy.

[IPv6Freely 2094]

4 hours ago, Kgbeast said:

Either way, I hope Bjorkstrand will be able to recover after last night hit by Polak, and participate in playoff games, how many or few of them will there be. I grew to be quite a fan of this guy.

Me too. It sucks how he hit his head on the ice after the hit. Any word of concussion testing yet? 

[Kgbeast 195]

1 hour ago, IPv6Freely said:

Me too. It sucks how he hit his head on the ice after the hit. Any word of concussion testing yet? 

Polack is suspended for 2 games. Bjorkstrand will not be playing in Washington later today due to the injury. No other news yet. I think he is still being evaluated for concussion. 

[IPv6Freely 2094]

Just now, Kgbeast said:

Polack is suspended for 2 games. Bjorkstrand will not be playing in Washington later today due to the injury. No other news yet. I think he is still being evaluated for concussion. 

I don't agree with the suspension because the hit wasn't worth 5 minutes let alone a suspension, but I guess because he hit his head on the ice it's not surprising they came to that conclusion. 

[Kgbeast 195]

9 minutes ago, IPv6Freely said:

I don't agree with the suspension because the hit wasn't worth 5 minutes let alone a suspension, but I guess because he hit his head on the ice it's not surprising they came to that conclusion. 

I thought there were a couple of pretty hard hits by both teams and this one did not look much different from the others. From listening to some of the discusdions, it was put as major because refs concluded that Polak was not pursuing the puck but just was after creaming Bjorkstrand on that play. I want to watch this again and see if this is that obvious. I guess it could be like that interference call in Bruins against Leafs a couple of days ago, you can see it only from certain angle.

[IPv6Freely 2094]

48 minutes ago, Kgbeast said:

I thought there were a couple of pretty hard hits by both teams and this one did not look much different from the others. From listening to some of the discusdions, it was put as major because refs concluded that Polak was not pursuing the puck but just was after creaming Bjorkstrand on that play. I want to watch this again and see if this is that obvious. I guess it could be like that interference call in Bruins against Leafs a couple of days ago, you can see it only from certain angle.

I think it would be better to compare it to the hit on Bergeron which DID deserve to be a major. This one is not even close to that one.

The interference call was really obvious. A weak call considering what was allowed to go on, but a really obvious one never the less.

 

The video from player safety mentions that "bjorkstrand was not eligible to be hit in any way on this play", which is where I think the disconnect is for me. I'm just not understanding why he's not.

I posted a GIF of the hit in the suspension thread. I keep watching it over and over and just don't see how that's a major let alone suspension. Though you can see where he hits his head on the ice which is probably where the injury came from.