LOS ANGELES — Believe it or not, the Blue Jackets’ power play — a spirit-sucking disaster for well more than a year now — plunged to a new depth of ineptitude on Saturday. Bad enough to set a new franchise record. Bad enough to spoil a close game against the Los Angeles Kings in Staples Center.
And bad enough to set off captain Nick Foligno, whose postgame comments were as pointed and profane as any he’s uttered in his six-plus seasons in Columbus.
The Blue Jackets allowed two shorthanded goals on the same third-period power play — that’s a franchise first and a league-wide rarity — and lost 4-1 to the Kings. That’s two losses against the last-place team in the NHL’s overall standings in five days. The Blue Jackets were beaten at home by Detroit on Tuesday.
Foligno usually frames even difficult losses in a positive light. He sprinkled no sugar atop his words late Saturday, when the dressing room opened a couple of minutes late due to a brief team meeting.
“It’s really disappointing,” Foligno said. “This game is just disappointing. It’s not on anyone but the players. You can’t ask for … it’s nothing to do with the game plan. We have to get guys in here that commit to the team. I’m not saying guys aren’t, it’s just (about doing it) the right way, the right way to play.
“Do it when it’s hard. Do it the way we need to do it as a team, not when it’s easy and goals are coming, when you’re feeling it. Do it when it’s hard.
“You’re getting every team’s best when you’re a good team. We’ve crossed that bridge now. Teams know we’re a good team, so you’re getting that team’s best every time you play them. But we’re not giving teams our best, so what do you expect the result to be? We’ll do it, then we won’t do it. Do it, then we won’t do it. We’re just a reactionary team right now, and it’s costing us some big points.”
He was only getting started. The Blue Jackets have had plenty of stretches during Foligno’s time in Columbus where they’ve struggled. But this feels different, he said.
“This feels new to me, only because I haven’t experienced this Jekyll and Hyde so much,” he said. “One game we can play like world beaters, and the next game we play like slobs. I don’t understand it. It pisses me off as the captain of the team. I just don’t see the commitment that’s needed to win consistently in this league. I don’t know why guys haven’t realized that.
“We talk about, ‘Oh, we learned from the Washington (playoff) series.’ Well, we haven’t learned shit, obviously, with the way we’re playing. Talk is cheap on this team, and I’m tired of seeing guys talk and not do it. That’s my challenge to everybody in here.
“I mean, enough’s enough. There are only so many rah-rah speeches you can give. Only so much the coach can say. Eventually you have to go out and do it, do your job, play for the right reasons, play for your team, accept the role that you need to play and just do what you need to do to help us win. We do it on some nights, but there are too many nights early in the season where we haven’t done it. That’s bullshit.”
At 7:31 of the third, with the Kings ahead 2-1, Los Angeles’ Ilya Kovalchuk plowed into Blue Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (25 saves), putting the Jackets on the power play.
Who could have guessed the Kings would use that situation to pad their lead?
Only 13 seconds into the power play, the Jackets allowed a shorthanded goal. Anze Kopitar (of course) scored on a second-effort play to make it 3-1.
Not even a minute later, Jackets forward Cam Atkinson tried a blind, backhand pass from above the right circle all the way across the blue line, but Dustin Brown picked it off and went in for a breakaway.
Blue Jackets defenseman Ryan Murray had no choice but to hook Brown as he gave chase, but Murray’s hooking on a breakaway led to a penalty shot. Brown scored on the penalty shot at 8:43. It was 4-1.
Once again, Nick Foligno …
“That’s a luxury to be on the power play; I was taught that when I came into the league,” Foligno said. “You don’t get on the power play. … I didn’t sniff it until three or four years into the league. You have to earn your right there.
“It just seems like we go over the boards and it’s … terrible. It’s sucking the life out of our team and it’s nothing Lars (assistant coach Brad Larsen) is doing, nothing the coaches are doing. It’s just us. We’re not executing.
“You look at guys, they don’t even want the puck. You’re watching guys when they get a pass and boom! … they whack it away. No composure. I get it. You’re struggling, you’re looking for confidence. But man, that’s when you have confidence. You’re a man up. You’re a man up out there, and we’re pissing away games because of that
