COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s rare for NHL coaches to address players en masse in the dressing room after games, win or lose. But Columbus Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason and his staff had a message to deliver after Monday’s 2-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils in Nationwide Arena.
It wasn’t the type of speech you might expect for a club that has suddenly forgotten how to score goals, lost four straight games at an unforgiving time of the season and fumbled its grip on a playoff spot.
“We went in and talked about how incredibly positive that game was, that (third) period was,” Evason said. “The guys know it. We know it. We’re good.”
In the absence of much-needed standings points, the Blue Jackets have to hope that Monday’s loss was the first sign of the traction they need to dig out from this late-season funk. There’s evidence to support that theory, too.
Mathieu Olivier scored the Blue Jackets’ only goal at 13:24 of the third period, ending a season-worst shutout streak (182 minutes, 55 seconds) and lifting a weight off not only the players on the bench but many in the crowd of 16,708, who seemed nervously quiet in the first two periods.
Olivier’s goal made it 2-1, and the Blue Jackets played unburdened the rest of the way. They outshot the Devils 24-3 in the third period and 45-20 on the night. As for shot attempts — that’s all shots fired toward the net, including blocked shots and missed shots — the Jackets had an 87-43 advantage.
They did everything but score on Devils goaltender Jake Allen, who had 45 saves.
“It was freakin’ awesome,” Evason said. “Did we get the result, no. Did we play the right way? Do we believe that this is the turning point? Do we believe that this is the … not only the period, but the game that turns us around and we’re ready to go forward? Yeah.
“We played our asses off, guys. We had so many unbelievable opportunities. We played the right way. We played hard. We played disciplined. We played within the system, structurally. We just didn’t get the result.”
Wearing our Jake Allen pajamas to sleep tonight. pic.twitter.com/41ulZteZ5M
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) March 18, 2025
Evason has done a masterful coaching job all season with the Blue Jackets, and the approach he’s taking now at a tenuous time of the season is pretty clear.
Like every season, the play across the NHL has ramped up considerably since the calendar flipped to March. The Blue Jackets are not just one of the league’s youngest clubs, their young players are in prominent spots in the lineup.
Five of their top-six forwards, for instance, are 24 or younger, including 20-year-old No. 1 center Adam Fantilli. And they’re seeing, for the first time, how every inch of the ice becomes contested territory and how the space in front of the opposing goaltender is full of elbows, crosschecks and stick whacks.
They’ve seen how NHL officials tend to lose their whistles for anything less than simple assault.
Evason is trying to prop them up and guide them through this, trying to keep their chests full of confidence, all the while knowing it can’t take too long to adjust or a playoff spot — once a pipe dream, still a possibility — will be out of reach.
“You go through ebbs and flows throughout a year,” Olivier said. “Sometimes (the puck) goes in like nothin’, and sometimes you’re having a hard time scoring. It’s just part of a long season. Unfortunately, our timing of not being able to score as much is a little tough.
“We did the right things to score. It’s going to come. This group still believes. We definitely put our best foot forward and had every chance to get this done.”
When the Blue Jackets and Devils met six days earlier, the Blue Jackets were just four points behind New Jersey, hoping to challenge for third place in the Metropolitan Division. Now, they’re 10 points back of the Devils and sitting in 11th place in the East. (Yes, Detroit moved into 10th even though they didn’t play.)
As easy as dotting the ‘i’ pic.twitter.com/G1WH23TD0a
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) March 18, 2025
New Jersey scored both of their goals only 39 seconds apart in the second period, taking a 2-0 lead.
At 13:35 of the second, Devils forward Timo Meier caught Jackets defenseman Dante Fabbro flat-footed in the neutral zone and raced around him for a clean look on Columbus goaltender Jet Greaves, who was called up on Sunday from AHL Cleveland.
Then, at 14:14, Greaves left his net to play a puck that had been sent along the wall to his right. One problem: as the puck skidded around the corner boards, it took an unusual kick off the wall and shot past Greaves behind the net.
Worse yet, the puck landed right on the stick of Devils forward Jesper Bratt, who scored from the right circle before Greaves could get back.
“It was coming in flat on the yellow and kind of kicked off the yellow, but at the end of the day, it’s my job to stop it and keep it out of the net,” Greaves said. “It’s too bad, but it’s part of the game. You just have to handle them and move on and keep going.”
The Blue Jackets switched up their top two lines before the game and before the third period. For the third, Fantilli played between Kent Johnson and Kirill Marchenko, while Boone Jenner moved back to center Dmitri Voronkov and Yegor Chinakhov.
The 45 shots on goal was the Blue Jackets’ second-highest this season. Chinakhov, in a funk since his return from a lower-back injury, led the way with six, while Olivier and Zach Werenski had five each. Allen was peppered in the third, but only Olivier could solve him.
“We believed we could do it,” Olivier said. “I thought we had a decent game overall. I thought we pushed really hard in the third, gave ourselves a chance and fell short.
“I’m not going to go home and dwell on the standings and the two points we didn’t get. I’m going to start focusing on our game with Florida (on Thursday) and recreating a similar performance with a better result.”
(Photo of Jake Allen and Mathieu Olivier: Russell LaBounty / Imagn Images)
