CBJ vs NJD 12/31

Breakdowns on Goals Against Breakdown, Mateychuk Speed Struggle, No Momentum Change?

The heavily built up New Year’s Eve Bash didn’t quite live up to the hype. The Blue Jackets played a generally great game but fell apart for two minutes and didn’t have the leadership to stop the bleeding and get the ship righted.

I have tracked and clipped the game today, with a mild hangover courtesy of some Feuerzangenbowle, so I am forgoing posting charts elsewhere and going to keep this all as brief as I can.

Chances

The story of the game is ultimately going to come from how well the Blue Jackets played in-zone in both directions. They created a ton of chances, got to a ton of rebounds and scored all their goals there. They even got the more dangerous rush and forecheck chances.

In particular, I want to point to the number of segments in the “recovery” area of New Jersey. There are a ton of them and many are small. The Blue Jackets protected the dangerous areas and forced New Jersey to the perimeter. At least, generally.

On both of New Jersey’s 5v5 goals, the Blue Jackets featured some key mental lapses. I’ll get into those now, though it will perhaps make some of the later analysis feel beside the point.

I must also point out that the Blue Jackets were heavily let down by the powerplay. Four opportunities and very little to show for it.

5v5 Goals Breakdown

The first goal comes on the heels of a very tremendous effort from Kirill Marchenko with a creative pass from Fantilli to win him the center-lane. He bulls his way through the neutral zone, maintaining control, until offering the puck to Marchment who gets a rush chance but misses the net.

Marchenko attracted so many Devils defenders that they’re all clumped together. It was brilliant, really, except that the Blue Jackets are now spread and they don’t have any D in the picture. Fabbro and Provorov were changing for Mateychuk and Severson. It is therein that we can observe “the problem”.

A full second after the shot missed, the Blue Jackets forwards are nearly all further away from their net than every Devils player. It’s a tough point to criticize here, but Fantilli and Marchment take some pretty lazy and undisciplined loops in reaction to the shot here. We can forgive both of them, given Marchment had just shot the puck and Fantilli was attacking for a potential rebound, but the point remains that they gave the Devils a big advantage.

Perhaps they expected the D to be ready to recover the puck, in which case their positioning was potentially ready to exploit and overly bunched New Jersey formation. In both cases, you’d probably want more “situational awareness”.

Fantilli gets back to cover and Gritsyuk eventually scores on a middle-distance shot. Perhaps Mateychuk with better footwork or a longer reach could have made the difference but he’s also got three players to contend with and not much support.

The third goal comes on the back of a similar set of mental mistakes. The Blue Jackets are battling for possession and are, generally, in good structure.

Marchenko ultimately abandons this structure to go win a puck and recover possession, perhaps breaking from his responsibilities, but neither Fantilli nor Marchment seem to recognize the danger or rotate to cover the hole in the formation.

Marchenko succeeds on his gambit, he accurately read the opportunity to make a difference and pounced, he knocks the puck off Brown’s stick and is pushing him back into the corner with Fabbro again.

Notice, though, Fantilli and Marchment, and really the entirety of the Blue Jackets’ structure, in a line on the outside of the zone. Given that Fantilli was in a board battle, I think Marchment gets the blame for not rotating. Given that Fantilli is the “center” perhaps he should have his wits about him here as well.

Fantilli ultimately moves to the boards again, instead of instinctively taking away the off-board passing lane, where Brown is simply throwing a puck into the slot towards two prepared Devils and an unprepared Ivan Provorov.

Game, New Jersey.

Miles Wood’s early injury, which looked quite brutal, forced Evason into a couple of different deployment strategies. The foremost being shifting Marchenko onto the line with Sillinger and Voronkov to pretty good results. We’ll see the consequences of these shifts on the charts later.

Kent Johnson still didn’t play much and Voronkov has continued to see his ice-time slashed down to near 10 minutes at 5v5. It has been trending this direction lately which is puzzling considering the training camp championing of his conditioning.

Ivan Provorov played a ton, this was the first game where Mateychuk wasn’t given even close to similar minutes. I can’t say I exactly understand the reason for it, but the next wave of defense is all more or less trusted these days. That’s good for Dante Fabbro, who has looked much better lately.

Given the four charts above represent the same data but across all the different stylistic delineations, I have chosen to combine them here to save space. The image is rather large, so I apologize.

What we can see, from the Blue Jackets perspective, is that Kirill Marchenko, Mason Marchment, Boone Jenner and Charlie Coyle dominated the day in terms of offensive contributions. Fitting, then, they are also the scorers though their scoring chances weren’t the largest.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed that Kirill Marchenko’s offensive contributions have been returning and a large part of it comes from his invigorated d-zone play as well. He created just so much offense off the pass.

The first goal he scored checks every box of his return to form: he kills the play in the dzone and gets the rush started, albeit misses the pass, attacks the slot after Marchment and Fantilli work to breakdown the coverage, and continues to attack the interior again to set up Marchment’s rebound.

Jenner and Coyle, on the other hand, created a ton at the net but also off the rush. They’re big and tenacious, it’s a welcome presence.

The other standout here is Cole Sillinger. He had a great game even setting up some of those distinguishing Marchenko chances. The pass was hard to handle, and that was a bit of a theme this whole game, but there were winning opportunities that the Blue Jackets just didn’t finish. It happens.

From the New Jersey perspective, it all came in a flash. A two minute period of heart-wrenching goalscoring. Jesper Bratt danced through the CBJ neutral zone forecheck for a massive chance but it was Luke Hughes and Arseni Gritsyuk that tore out CBJ hearts.

At 5v5 exclusively, we can really see how small and limited most of New Jersey’s chances were. Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier attacked in runways but there aren’t too many large and direct chances.

Marhcenko, Coyle and Sillinger stand out at 5v5 exclusively.

Given that Evason didn’t have four lines to deploy, the chart bumps Voronkov and Sillinger down. A couple more things to observe here that aren’t necessarily obvious from just the offensive chances.

Though Adam Fantilli struggled to get the final touches, he did have an excellent game from an on-ice chance share perspective, besting Kirill Marchenko. Jenner, relative to his linemates did a little bit worse because of a brief shift alongside Fantilli and Marchenko it looks like. Mateychuk and Severson also shared the ice.

That was this chance, and I think it demonstrates the big issue that plagues Denton Mateychuk. The Blue Jackets were in a set neutral zone forecheck, packing the center lane with bodies and Mateychuk was danced around by Jesper Bratt’s tremendous speed for a very big couple of chances. Perhaps you’d like Fantilli to get physically engaged on that backcheck so Mateychuk doesn’t have so much on his plate.

I point this out, along with the above goals analysis, to demonstrate that the Blue Jackets’ young players still have warts. Not that they aren’t good, and not that any players are completely without warts, but that these growing pains (heartbreaking losses) might continue until they’ve taking more steps forward. That’s especially true without the offensive lynchpins of last season in Zach Werenski and Sean Monahan.

The shift chart is warped because of the inconsistent deployment alongside Sillinger-Voronkov but it doesn’t particularly look good either.

91 and 27 did have some big chances but Fantilli was on the ice at that time as well, alas they did not make it in the shift chart.

The Goal Barrage & Leadership

I have to say I’m a bit perplexed by the inaction across multiple fronts during this barrage but perhaps a few key ones. We can acknowledge that a fully-fledged Adam Fantilli might be that guy who prevents these sorts of mistakes should he grow into that sort of dominant force. Perhaps he’s lacking that type of leadership now and we can acknowledge that Zach Werenski is perhaps that guy otherwise.

In any case, I do not understand why we didn’t see anything from Dean Evason or Mathieu Olivier. A timeout to stymie the bleeding could have helped, though I also acknowledge that calling the timeout sometimes can make players think more about the problems and grip their sticks tighter.

Olivier is particularly confusing here. For all the build-up and talk of a grudge match, it was Voronkov fighting. Why can Olivier enter a staged fight against Kurtis MacDermid when Ottawa goes down a goal if the Blue Jackets can’t get the same? If fighting is supposed to help change momentum, where was it?

Injuries Reshaping the Roster

I’ll try to get more on the Yegor Chinakhov trade and what it means for the roster position before the next game on Saturday, but it looks like injuries might be forcing the Blue Jackets’ hand into action quickly.

Reports suggest Werenski will be back for that game, which should help the D corps, but we’re still unclear on Sean Monahan’s particular ailments. With Miles Wood and Isac Lundestrom both out, opportunity for Kent Johnson once again emerges.

The young forward is having a brutal season but his game is still mostly there. The Blue Jackets are playing differently, and that’s absolutely harming him, but I might suggest a set of lines that could get him back to what he was doing last season:

• Marchment - Fantilli - Marchenko

• Sillinger - Coyle - Olivier

• Voronkov - Jenner - Johnson

This top nine would help Johnson take control of transition and other center responsiblities while also offering him two players to dominate in-zone walls and the net-front. Voronkov can play him into space in the neutral zone.

Ideally, this line plays through a more game-control lens and isn’t as single-minded about getting pucks deep and forechecking. With Werenski back, a slower pace may also allow link ups with his speed differential.

Evason has really liked what Sillinger has given in the center of the ice lately, and Jenner-Coyle-Olivier was great, so we might just see that continue. Perhaps Monahan feels energized by the rest and returns just the same.