CBJ vs Nashville 10/26

A game full of mistakes and sloppy plays but one where the Blue Jackets were perhaps lucky to emerge with a point.

The Stats

For the most part, the overall difference between the teams wasn’t large. Nashville was buoyed by a huge performance from Filip Forsberg that is both misrepresented by the huge xG chance on a pad stuff and missing plenty of his contributions elsewhere on the ice.

Nasvhille wasted an incredible amount of dangerous offense, we’ll get into it on the tape later. If they simply put some pucks on net, or handled pucks cleanly or made decisions a bit faster, the xG Cake could look drastically different.

The Blue Jackets, on the other hand, had some really high quality opportunity for their shooters but couldn’t really bear down and finish. Nashville deserves credit for almost never being out of place and always in a position to influence a shot.

Both teams got opportunities at the net front and both had dangerous chances from dangerous situations. Nashville was a little more concentrated and they got to some more rebounds but, again, it doesn’t show the chances that they didn’t take.

From a matchup perspective, the top lines battled well but the Nashville line faired better against secondary competition whereas the CBJ line struggled against Nashville’s heavy third line.

Zach Werenski, on the whole, had a phenomenal game on the shot chart and a large portion of the damage was done with Jack Johnson and Jordan Harris on the ice. That’s a bit unfortunate, as I thought Harris had a pretty good game.

ZAR-Danforth-Olivier really struggled from a volume perspective and was a disjointed line, outside of a few fun forays from Danforth and the combination of Oliver and ZAR, that really fed the Nashville re-entry attack.

JVR-Kuraly-Labanc was a great line that created a big advantage but in low-volume and low-event minutes. Labanc covered a lot of ground and made some pacey plays. He didn’t necessarily connect on everything you’d hope but had quite timely interventions.

In my hand-tracked data, Filip Forberg’s overall dominance really shines through as does the dangerous performance from Werenski, Fantilli and Chinakhov as well as volume performance of Christiansen. Overall, the Predators top players created from dangerous situations and they worked together in doing them.

Stories of the Game

Nashville Relinquished Chances

I have plenty of praise for the grit, wherewithal and smart sticks of plenty of the Blue Jackets forwards for playing through dangerous chances and continuing to eliminate options but I think these types of missed chances mean we should think about the game a bit differently from what the stats tell us.

Perhaps I should say something like, it doesn’t matter if they don’t put the chance on net and, to an extent, I think that’s true but there’s another world where we have an understanding of the degree to which Nashville was threatening to score in these situations and instead overcomplicated them.

If we’re a coach trying to understand the game, praise goes to the players who stuck to it but if we want to be consistently good we can’t let these situations arise so often.

Disjointed Blue Jackets

Though Nashville wasted plenty of the high opportunity in the first period, the Blue Jackets didn’t seem to get the message. They failed to clean up their game and though Werenski and Provorov cleaned it up a little bit the other defense pairs brought their own mistakes.

Here’s Werenski giving the puck to Labanc who is plainly unready and under intense pressure.

Severson making a cardinal pinch sin, letting a free puck go quickly to the middle of the ice, by trying to make an intricate and complicated play to Zach Aston-Reese.

Severson turning the puck over and Fantilli being really confused leading to Nashville’s first goal.

Jack Johnson puts Monahan in a horrific position that, luckily works out.

Nashville Forecheck and Re-Entry vs CBJ Retrievals and Exits

By the third period, Nashville had pretty much figured it out. I’d go so far as to say they figured it out before but it took a bit for the chances to start flowing.

Nashville put the Blue Jackets on the back foot with plenty of pressure, perhaps aided by sloppy and disconnected play from all of the defense pairs, but also took away their capacity to access the middle on breakouts.

Largely, the credit goes to Filip Forsberg, Jonathan Marchessault, Ryan O’Reilly and Craig Smith but plenty of simply very poor decisions from Blue Jackets defensemen made it plenty easy.

The clip starts from with a regroup from Nashville and Jack Johnson getting easily walked by Alexandre Carrier. Monahan is back to cover the weakside option, so no extreme danger.

Forsberg is extremely disruptive from behind Monahan but he gets the puck to Marchenko who tries to just slip it out. Carrier has excellent tracking and is in a good position to stop the half-hearted if well intentioned zone clear attempt.

Carrier puts the puck on net and the Blue Jackets are lucky. Nashville had caught them in the specific exit turnover vulnerability but didn’t connect a play that would have been more dangerous.

The puck goes to the wall and Sillinger chips a hard puck immediately to no one. This wasn’t a soft space pass with time to anticipate the action. Now the Predators are attacking again.

Harris tries to use the boards, fails. Wasted shot by Forsberg. Sillinger is clamped on the wall by Ryan O’Reilly, Josi keeps the puck alive. Johnson passes the puck directly to a Nashville Predator. Nashville Re-Entry plays again and Forsberg misses the net.

This sequence is perhaps the most indicative of the troubles the Predators caused all night though it happened after the damage was done.

Monahan gets the puck with Ryan O’Reilly already on top of his stick, completely surrounded by Predators and also staring down Filip Forsberg. The end result is a strong Forsberg shot on net.

The Predators were fast and combative, the Blue Jackets defensemen sloppy and the end result is that the puck was constantly in the Blue Jackets’ end.

The second goal starts with a really confused and disjointed retrieval play from Werenski and Provorov. Largely unlucky because of Olivier’s block leaving them down a man for a critical period and because the shot went through two forwards and the five hole but a messy retrieval nonetheless.

The third goal comes from an Olivier chip-out that happens too quickly for a forward to get in position to pressure (ZAR is completely flat footed).

A slow but sure re-entry later, the Blue Jackets once again try to chip the puck out without connection to the rest of their breakout and Carrier Re-enters again. Lucky, part two I suppose, because I point shot found its way through.

Still, the Nashville Predators, in conjunction with whatever the Blue Jackets had going on to cause such disconnection with defensemen, got to play the game their way and force the Blue Jackets to surrender to their will.

This is how games tend to go when you have the type of players the Predators have, namely, superstars playing at the top of their game in Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg. They warp the game to them and you have to find a way to right the ship. For now, the Blue Jackets don’t have anyone who can really do that but it’s also not a single player effort. It takes building and stacking shifts, winning small battles and compounding those into greater momentum shifts. Whether because of players or it just being “one of the those nights,” the Blue Jackets didn’t have it.

Zach Werenski

These two were probably the best Blue Jackets on the ice. That isn’t to say their performances were without warts but they still played to their games despite the shelling from Nashville’s heavy pressure.

First, some really cool movement from Filip Forsberg to stress the CBJ defensive coverage and get lost. A great simple play from Yegor Chinakhov (nearly 90 seconds into a shift) stops a look and wins possession for the Blue Jackets. Werenski recognizes, activates into the play so that Chinakhov can line change without a numbers disadvantage on entry.

The Predators have been eviscerating the Blue Jackets to start this period and Werenski’s capacity to turn it on and help pin them in the zone is instrumental in making the Predators pay for overstaying their welcome in an attempt to win the game. He keeps it simple for possession and uses his legs to get to pucks first. Labanc does the same and their ultimately rewarded with the third goal.

I don’t know if there’s more to say about this clip or about the disconnectedness between the defense and the forwards, but this clip pained my soul. Werenski could not move to create a shot better than he did and in each case the puck just couldn’t make it to him. Labanc could have returned the pass, Kuraly could have fed himn in a dangerous area (though he did try) and Sillinger could have just not kicked the puck away from Werenski.