Jackets Road Trip in Review

It was certainly an interesting week for the Blue Jackets, coming home with a 1-2-0 record out west, and another 0-3-0 record in the other half of their six game road trip.  I haven't recapped in quite some time because of how much negativity could be grouped into each one, but I think it's worth taking a few things into account from these last six games.

I want to group the first four games into one collection of awful, where the Blue Jackets were outscored 17-5.  The obvious is there, where they need to score more, produce more offense, and generate fewer chances in their own zone. As noted, it's a grouping of losses where the mistakes are greatly magnified, so I won't bother spending much time with it.

Rather, I want to touch a little on "Clock Gate" and the LA game, and then spend a fair bit of time on the treat I enjoyed last night.  If you've been under a rock, you'll be interested to learn that with 1.8 second left in the game against Los Angeles, the clock quite literally stopped ticking down for somewhere between 1-2 seconds, giving the Kings additional time to score the game winner. Sure enough, Doughty found the back if the net with 0.6 seconds left, but it was more like -0.4 or -1.4 seconds remaining.  I know watching these games doesn't mean I'm 'owed' anything, but I feel like the fans and certainly the team, who played reasonably well for sixty minutes of hockey, deserved a better fate.

New Look Jackets Behind Todd Richards

Sometimes the atmosphere around an arena can become stale.  I am not one who normally attends practice, and after experiencing an Arniel practice shortly after the new year had arrived, I was not really left with the need to attend another one.  The drills were reasonable, and the effort was somewhat there, but the atmosphere was heavily lacking.  With that said, I attended my first Todd Richards practice on Monday morning, and I must say, the difference was clear.

Players were upbeat and into the drills with quite a bit of effort.  When the time was appropriate, they enjoyed ribbing each other for scoring or not scoring, and were giving Mason (the goalie who happened to be on our side of the ice) all kinds of cheering when he made a big save.  Dorsett, Boll, Brassard, and Prospal were the most audible for me, and there were times when I was openly laughing at their antics.  I would never suggest that the team play to the fans during their practices, but I truly enjoyed watching some of the character bleed out.

The drills themselves were very satisfying to watch.  High compete level with specific parts of their game in mind, and I'll share a couple here.  The first drill is designed to have a forward head into the zone with the puck and take a shot on net.  Once that has been accomplished, two skaters take the puck the other way on a two on one, and the job of the original shot taker is to back check hard to try and get back into the play before the shot is taken on the opposite end.  It is a very creative way of getting the back checker a bit tired first, not unlike how he would feel in a game.