Monday night’s game in one word: frustrating.
It’s a feeling that has lingered for a while and one the Blue Jackets would like desperately to send out to sea. Take this game against the Tampa Bay Lightning for example: the game never really got away from them, but despite numerous chances, they couldn’t capitalize and take hold of it.
There were at least four partial breakaways that went for naught, rebound chances that just missed wide, pucks that bounced over their sticks at the moment of truth, and one that sat agonizingly on the goal line before play was whistled dead.
At the other end, Joonas Korpisalo pulled his weight in his NHL debut, making 27 saves while keeping a cool head between the pipes. It was, as stated earlier, part of the frustration and disappointment in a 2-1 loss to the Lightning, who won for the fourth time in six games and bounced back from a loss to Washington on Saturday.
“I thought (Korpisalo) played really well,” coach John Tortorella said. “Really encouraging. For a young kid coming in, it’s really encouraging.”
“We battled back, and again, we just couldn’t finish,” Tortorella added. “You saw it: the one on the goal line, a couple shots blocked, a couple shot wide, and they were good chances. That’s the way it is right now. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves; we wake up tomorrow, it’s another day and we’ll keep trying to get better.”
They say hockey is a game of mistakes, and the Blue Jackets made a couple that put them into “chasing” mode, as Tortorella deemed it.
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