Playoff Run Ends Early for Jackets After Promising Start

The Columbus Blue Jackets had high hopes heading into the RHL playoffs, coming off a strong regular season and drawing a first-round matchup against their familiar division rivals, the New Jersey Devils. While the Devils were no slouch, finishing third in the Metro, the Jackets earned home ice and entered the series looking to finally get over the hump and make a deeper run.

Game 1 at Nationwide Arena didn’t go quite as planned. It was a tight back-and-forth battle, and like much of the series to come, it went to overtime. Unfortunately, Columbus came out on the losing end, falling 4-3 in front of their home crowd. That set the tone for what would be a wild, grind-it-out series. Four of the six games needed extra time to decide a winner.

Game 2 was the Jackets’ chance to punch back, and they did just that. Cam Talbot stood tall, stopping 30 of 31 shots and posting a .968 save percentage to earn first star honors. The game-winner came just over a minute into overtime, with Brandon Hagel finishing off a solo effort after a clean faceoff win by Mika Zibanejad. It was a gutsy response from Columbus, and it kept the series tied heading into New Jersey.

The two teams traded wins in Games 3 and 4, with the series staying deadlocked. But in Game 5 back at home, the Jackets finally grabbed control. They gutted out a win in front of a loud home crowd, then went into enemy territory and closed it out in overtime in Game 6.

That final game had all the drama you could want. The Devils looked poised to force Game 7, but Andrei Svechnikov had other plans, scoring twice in the third period including the game-tying goal with just 31 seconds left. Then, for the second time in the series, Hagel played the hero in OT, finishing off a pass from Hampus Lindholm to send Columbus into the second round.

Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ended.

The Jackets ran into a frustrating matchup with the Buffalo Sabres, and everything that worked in the regular season and round one seemed to fall apart. Despite chasing Buffalo’s starter Jake Oettinger early in Game 1, the Sabres still managed to pull out a 5-4 win behind relief goalie Connor Ingram. The Jackets bounced back in Game 2 with a 4-3 win, but even that came with warning signs, as they were outshot 30 to 20.

From there, the wheels came off. Columbus dropped the next three games, managing just four total goals over that stretch. Line juggling didn’t spark the offense, and it was tough to stomach losing to a Sabres team that was running the default SimonT strategies all series long.

Quinn Hughes led the Jackets in playoff scoring with 11 points, while Vincent Trocheck followed with 10. Gustav Nyquist, the team’s lone deadline pickup, chipped in six goals but didn’t register a single assist. The biggest disappointment was Tage Thompson, who went silent with zero goals in the entire postseason. For a player the team relies on as a top scorer, that drought was a crushing blow.

In net, Cam Talbot played every game and was solid if not spectacular, finishing with a 2.64 GAA and a .914 save percentage. Not quite his regular season numbers, but certainly not the reason the team was bounced early.

The real story might’ve been the special teams collapse. The Jackets, who led the league in penalty killing during the regular season, completely fell apart in the playoffs. They finished with the third worst PK at just 65 percent. The power play didn’t provide any spark either, staying stuck at 19 percent.

All told, it was a frustrating end to what felt like a promising season. The roster looked deep, the goaltending was dependable, and expectations were high. But once again, the postseason had other plans. Columbus heads into the offseason with plenty to be proud of, but also plenty to think about.