In Sunday night’s game, the Blue Jackets did a lot of things right. They controlled the shot battle, matched the Predators physicality, and won the faceoff battles. But missed opportunities and mistakes that led to odd-man rushes and breakaways prevented the Jackets from taking home the victory, and they fell to the Nashville Predators 4-3.
“I don’t think it’s anything they did,” Zach Werenski said. “They played a hard game, but we gave them a lot of free chances, a lot of breakaways, two on ones. They capitalized on them. Bob made some key saves when we needed him to. I think without Bob the score would have been different. I think we hurt ourselves tonight.”
Nashville got on the board first off a Ryan Ellis goal and added a Kevin Fiala tally in the second period before the Jackets answered. Brandon Saad tipped in a Seth Jones shot to narrow the gap 2-1, but then a lost puck by Alexander Wennberg gave Calle Jarnkrok a clear path to Sergei Bobrovsky and he scored to make it 3-1.
The Jackets didn’t give up. They crawled back into the game through an Oliver Bjorkstrand goal that came after he collected a Wennberg pass off the outside edge of his skate. Then Werenski tied it up 3-3 when he got the puck, again from Wennberg, and with time and space, placed his shot perfectly past Juuse Saros.
Ultimately, a Mattias Ekholm goal that came after a bad Jackets’ line change was the decider.
“It’s a tough way to lose when you beat yourself,” head coach John Tortorella said.
Headed into the bye week, the Jackets are 37-16-5.
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