Next Day Review: CBJ vs CAR 4/16
An fun win and excellent sendoff for Jeff Rimer.
A late season game where Carolina was sitting their entire top six and the Blue Jackets had two NHL debuts, and Carolina having the same number, means I don’t really see a large reason to do any tactical analysis for this game.
Generally, it was a wide-open game. Carolina’s coverage was much more lax than usual and CBJ had the same sort of defensive lapses. There was plenty of effort but not necessarily that much “locked in” focus.
The Tape
Largely, this game was just about individual performances.
Zach Werenski
Zach Werenski put on a show. He finished the game with 4 points and
These shift graphs can be wildly chaotic and take time to truly digest, but I post it here only for Zach Werenski’s final shifts. He was basically only off the ice for a penalty kill in the last 15 minutes. It paid off.
Zach recovered the puck and started the breakout that lead to Luca Del Bel Belluz's first goal.
His down wall activation off of the OZ FO win was full of highly dangerous offense. He got the puck off the wall for a high danger shot and then landed on the net for an excellent goal.
He worked with Johnny Gaudereau and Ivan Provorov to wreak havoc on Carolina’s set defense. It’s too bad Gaudreau/Danforth couldn’t find him on the last activation in a high danger area.
Here, Zach finds his bread-and-butter “fourth man’s ice” but unfortunately passes to the wrong hand. Thankfully he finds Johnny Gaudreau with a rebounded point shot who turned it into a wrap-around goal.
Finally, after taking basically every shift in the 3rd period, he shoots through the middle, finds open ice on the entry and postage stamps his final goal in one of Jeff Rimer’s final calls. That it was Rimer’s prediction from the starting lineup just makes it all the more magical.
Not only did those points put him tied with Seth Jones for the CBJ single-season lead for points by a defenseman but put him tied for 4th in 5v5 points by a defenseman. He played more 5v5 minutes than Hedman and Makar but significantly less than Hughes, Morrissey and Josi ahead of him.
The Avalanche have a game remaining, the Oilers 2, the lightning 1 and the Jets 1. Plenty of time for this board to move a little bit but nonetheless a fantastic season.
This is tied for the 8th most productive 5v5 scoring season in the last 5 years, though COVID had some implications there. Only Erik Karlsson’s 64(!) 5v5 points in 22-23, Roman Josi’s 48 in 21-22, Cale Makar’s 42 in 21-22 and Vince Dunn’s 42 in 22-23 are better outside of this season.
Points aren’t everything but it’s a remarkable production achievement for a defenseman who is poised to ride the wave of this team’s competitive ascent to previously unseen heights for the Blue Jackets.
Gavin Brindley
I’ll have more Brindley content in the coming days, so I’ll keep it brief.
Brindley showed quite a lot of what he’s about this game. He was intense, focused and skilled in key areas. Furthermore, his ability to anticipate passing windows and move off-puck through the neutral zone could serve as accelerant for this team’s neutral zone game.
David Jiricek
David Jiricek struggled in this final game. Where he’s always been a bit risky some of his turnovers in this game were quite confusing. Many of his habits need to be refined and enhanced. He’s struggling to find cross-lane options as quickly as he was earlier and he’s wasting possession trying to force pucks along the boards.
Instinctual moving of his feet would certainly help but that isn’t only a “him” problem on the Blue Jackets. How he approaches and improves this offseason could be critical for him going forward. His flashes are very bright but do the Blue Jackets have the patience or development staff to bring the whole game out of him?