St. Louis suffered a series sweep at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday night. This was a fate that the Blue Jackets faced to the Detroit Red Wings just a short 48 hours later. Both of these teams felt devastation after they lost in their home arena, which adds much insult to injury to these young teams.
"It's a tough way to lose,” commented Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash. “What can you say? There's 19,000 people. Everyone saw what happened and I don't need to comment on it."
Nash quite possibly had the largest spotlight shine on him in this series. Being an impact player in Columbus since his rookie season in 2002-03, the 6’4” power forward has accumulated 194 goals and 355 points in 441 career NHL regular season games, but saw his first playoff action in this series. Nash had 40 goals in the regular season, but scored just one goal and three points in the four-game sweep. His lone-goal came in game four, when he tipped in a Rostislav Klesla shot early in the second period, which put his team down by just one goal at the time.
Nash has to be more of a presence if his team wants to succeed in the future. Red Wings’ coach Mike Babcock played Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk nearly every time Nash was on the ice, which was detrimental in shutting him down. But Nash rose above tough coverage all season; his play was not effective in this series.
Another player that was watched closely is Jackets’ goalie Steve Mason. The Calder Trophy candidate had a phenomenal year in goal, posting a .920 save percentage, ranking him 16th in the NHL. He ended up second in the league as well, with a spectacular 2.29 GAA. But he all but fell on his face in the playoffs with a dreadful 4.27 GAA and a .878 save percentage. He gave up rebounds left and right, being a part of the reason he faced 139 shots against in all four games. Mason is still a young 20 years of age, so he is expected to bounce back next season and play the great hockey he displayed throughout the regular season.
Columbus also played undisciplined hockey against the Red Wings. With 25 penalties taken and 22 of them being power-plays for their rival, the opposing team capitalized. 7 of the Red Wings’ 18 goals in the series were scored on the power-play, with Nicklas Lidstrom leading the way, scoring all of his four points on the power-play. Johan Franzen played an imperative part on the power-play as well, using his big body to block the view of Steve Mason.
Red Wings’ goaltender Chris Osgood was the biggest question mark coming into the series, receiving much criticism for his poor play over the regular season. But the veteran goaltender showed his all-star form from a year ago, posting a 4-0 record with a .936 save percentage. The bottom line for Columbus’ offense was that they simply did not find enough ways to take shots. Easier said than done against this stingy Red Wings defense, but Osgood was known all season to let shots go behind him from pretty much anywhere in the offensive zone. The Jackets accrued just 110 shots (as opposed to the Red Wings’ 140), and most of them were ones that Osgood could see. Traffic in front of the net prohibits the 5’10” goalie from seeing, and the Blue Jackets did not do enough of that.
The Blues, whose record in the last 31 games was an astounding 20-7-4, did not put up much of a better effort than the Blue Jackets in their 4-game series with Vancouver. Roberto Luongo was impressive in this series, posting a shutout and a league-best .962 save percentage after the sweep. Game two saw Luongo shutout the Blues with 30 saves, and teammate Alex Burrows had some encouraging words for his goaltender.
"He was unbelievable," Burrows said, "He made so many great saves."
On top of Luongo standing on his head, the Blues had some problems internally. The power-play saw 24 opportunities and scored just one power-play goal, giving them a conference-worst 4.2 percent.
"The one thing that killed us in the series is our power play," Blues forward Keith Tkachuk said. "We had opportunities throughout the series and we didn't capitalize.”
The lone-goal was scored by Brad Boyes in the first game which cut the Vancouver lead to 2-1, when a rebound popped out to Boyes, who made no mistake and shot it into the gaping net. This was possibly the only good power-play chance that Boyes looked strong on.
Boyes, who led the team during the regular season with 16 power-play goals, squandered many chances with the puck. He had 13 shots in the series, but fired many more than that in good one-time situations. Boyes seemed to forget how to hit the net in the series.
In addition, the Blues lacked the ability to try multiple set-ups on the power-plays that they were given. Every play was the same; Carlo Colaiacovo would slide it to either Patrik Berglund or Andy McDonald, and he would set Boyes up on a one-timer from the left face-off dot. The Canucks noticed this trend early in game one, and every time Boyes would either shoot wide or hit a defenseman. The Blues continued this strategy through game four, and it did not work once.
On the other side of special teams, the Blues surrendered 4 power-play goals on 18 opportunities, which gave them a dismal 77.8 penalty kill percentage. The Blues took unneeded penalties at bad points in the game, resulting in many 5-on-4 and 5-on-3 power-plays. The Sedin twins were all over the ice in the series, and it really showed in their puck control on the power-plays.
T.J. Oshie and Patrik Berglund, two rookies who play on the top Blues line, were pretty much nowhere to be seen in this series. Oshie won over the fans late in the season with his crushing hits and strong forecheck, but showed none of this during the series. Patrik Berglund ranked fourth in the rookie-scoring race with 47 points this season, but made little to no noise in the post-season. He registered just three shots and was held scoreless. Like Steve Mason, these two are rookies, and they are expected to be more valuable the next time the playoffs come around for St. Louis.
Both teams’ management stressed how important playoff experience is for a developing team. The Blues had not been in the playoffs since 2004 with a completely different lineup, and the Blue Jackets had never even seen the likes of post-season hockey. Both teams have the summer to really think about if going four and out is really that valuable of experience.
Wayne Gretzky saw four years of playoff disappointment before him and the Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup. In his first playoff appearance, the Oilers were swept by the Flyers in the first round of the 1980 playoffs. The Oilers came back strong in 1981 though, winning in six games against the Montreal Canadians and losing to the Islanders the next round. In that playoff year, Wayne managed to rack up 21 points in 9 games played. After losing in the 1982 playoffs, they finally made it to the Cup Finals in 1983, only to lose to the New York Islanders in a sweep. That very next year, Wayne and co. came out strong against the Islanders, beating them 4-1 and finally winning the Stanley Cup. Wayne amassed an outstanding 35 points in 19 games. Going through the hardships of playoff losses before 1984 made Wayne a stronger hockey player, but even through his first playoff as a rookie, Wayne still scored three points in three games. Point being that “The Great One” still seemed to show up his first playoff year, where as players like Oshie, Berglund, Nash and Steve Mason were nowhere to be seen. Plus, players that have become more of a veteran leader, like Jason Williams (1 assist) and Brad Boyes (3 points), must be able to produce when called upon. These skaters must be more of a dominant role if they want to succeed in the long run of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Only next year will tell if these teams can rebound from their poor playoff performances. If they don’t, Blues and Blue Jackets fans could see a few extra years of rebuilding than originally intended.
Keywords: Alex Burrows, Andy McDonald, Andy Murray, Blues, Brad Boyes, Calder Trophy, Carlo Colaiacovo, Chris Osgood, Columbus Blue Jackets, Keith Tkachuk, nhl, Patrik Berglund, Rick Nash, Roberto Luongo, Sedins, Steve Mason, T.J. Oshie, Wayne Gretzky
