The goal that pushed the Minnesota Wild past the Blue Jackets in a 2-1 win Oct. 18 at Grand Casino Arena was shotinto an opening roughly the size of a basketball above goalie Cam Talbot'sshoulder during a power play in the second period.
The guy who sent it there, Kirill Kaprizov, leads the NHL with 10 goals in nine games and makes $17 million a season. There wasn't much Talbot could've done, even with an unobstructed view of Kaprizov's shot, but the veteran backstop wore it anyway.
“Yeah, I think I gave him a little bit too much [to shoot at]," Talbot said. "He put it in a great spot, but the other four guys are doing their job. That’s my guy. I've got to make that save.”
Talbot's
answer plus his impressive ability to remain solid into his upper 30s is how he became the first goalie in NHL history to play and win games for nine separate franchises during his Blue Jackets debut Oct. 9 in a victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. He was the least of the Jackets' concerns in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the Wild forced him to make 32 saves to keep it a one-goal differential.
The Wild dominated possession and finished with a lopsided 34-14 edge in shots.
"[Talbot] stood on his head tonight," Blue Jackets center Adam Fantillisaid. "He gave us a chance. We’ve got to shoot the puck. We’ve got to get pucks [to the net]. We’ve got to be around the net and make [the opposing goalie's] life hard. Didn’t feel like we did much of that.”
That's because the Blue Jackets didn't while facing the rested Wild to finish a back-to-back that started with a taxing 1-0 overtime victory Oct. 17 against the New York Rangers that ended less than 24 hours earlier at Nationwide Arena.
The NHL's schedule makers did no favors for the Blue Jackets setting up those two games, which likely factored into the Wild's dominance, but the Blue Jackets can't entirely write it off to fatigue. They fumbled pucks and sent errant passes most of the game, but they also had chances to score more than once.
Conor Garland and Charlie Coyle couldn't convert breakaways into goals against Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt, who stopped all but one shot by Fantilli during a delayed penalty in the first period. Wallstedt also denied Fantilli and Coyle during good looks on power plays.
“We just didn’t execute the way we should’ve," Fantilli said. "We were putting pucks in guys’ feet. We were putting guys in tough positions. We weren’t working for our teammates to make their lives easier. We worked extremely hard, but I feel like we’ve got to work smarter. We didn’t get enough shots."
That's the concerning part.
Against the Rangers, shots ended at 29-29 after Kent Johnson's one-timer in OT won the game. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Blue Jackets finished with 27 scoring chances in that game and 15 were in high-danger situations most likely to produce goals.
One day later, the Wild finishedwith sweeping advantages in scoring chances (29-15) and high-danger chances (14-4), including margins of 22-11 and 10-3 in those situations at even strength.
“I’m always more concerned if we don’t create chances," Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. "We were creating chances [against New York]. The other guy pays people to stop the puck, too. If we weren’t creating chances, that’s a whole other conversation. So, as long as we’re creating chances, we’re confident the puck will go in.”
It hasn't gone in much, though, since the Blue Jackets opened the season Oct. 1 with a 6-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. They've been held to just one goal three times in the past six games and haven't scored more than three in any of them.
It's early, but scoring is becoming an issue.
DispatchBlue Jackets/Crew reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Scoring has become an early concern for Columbus Blue Jackets
