Columbus Blue Jackets grow again despite coughing up big lead to Penguins
PITTSBURGH — If the Blue Jackets lose a game how they did Tuesday to the Pittsburgh Penguins a year or two from now, it will require sifting through smoking wreckage in a quest for answers.
Not this year.
Not when they’re dead last in the NHL standings as the league’s youngest team and not on a night when they pinned the veteran Penguins against a proverbial wall for 30 minutes before the floor gave out in a 5-4 overtime loss at PPG Paints Arena.
At one point early in the second, the Penguins trailed 4-0 and their fans ― already on edge about their dicey playoff chances — began giving it to them loud and clear. Despite losing starting goalie Elvis Merzlikins to illness after just one period and backup Michael Hutchinson in net, the Blue Jackets were poised to end an embarrassing footnote.
Their 12-game skid in a personal house of horrors at PPG Paints Arena, not to mention a seven-game slide against the Penguins, teetered under the weight of an upstart bunch of Blue Jackets. A Columbus victory would’ve been glorious for Blue Jackets fan, despite many of them hoping for losses to increase the odds of winning a “generational talent” in the NHL's draft lottery.
Winning also would’ve felt like putting a thumb into Sidney Crosby’s eye by stealing two points the Penguins desperately needed to hold onto their wildcard spot, but it was too good to be true. A 4-0 lead vanished at the start of the third, the Penguins tied it 4-4 and Crosby won it in OT to hand the Blue Jackets a familiar stinging feeling leaving Pittsburgh.
This was different, though.
There was no need for wreckage sifting and no need for deep introspection. The lesson to take out of this loss to the Penguins is the young Blue Jackets are learning how to dominate better teams for certain stretches, and eventually, they'll learn how to finish it off.
All in due time.
“There was no negative for me in that game at all,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. “I’m disappointed for the group, but it’s not a negative. I look at the effort we gave. With the amount of guys we have out and with how we pushed that game … we build a 4-0 lead on the road. We’re out-chancing them 12-7 going to the third period.”
Even after a meltdown that led to the Penguins outshooting the Blue Jackets 40-17 from the second period to Crosby’s winner, Larsen found reason for affirmation. Emil Bemstrom played one of his best games this season, along with Liam Foudy and Lane Pederson. Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger are looking more comfortable with the puck each time they touch it and Patrik Laine is back to scoring goals again.
Even Merzlikins had turned things around after a terrible start to this season, which the Blue Jackets desperately need with four more years left on his contract. There were a lot of positives from what happened Tuesday and that's all the Blue Jackets need to focus on right now.
Two years from now, it may be a different story.
“You give them one (to start the third), they smelled blood, they came, but we settled ourselves back down,” Larsen said. “So, there’s zero negative I’m taking out of this. I’m disappointed in the result for that group in there, for as hard as they worked, but I’m not bringing a negative tone to that group at all.”
Ceulemans joins crowded stable of Columbus Blue Jackets defensemen
The Blue Jackets added Corson Ceulemans to their organizational depth chart Tuesday by signing the University of Wisconsin defensemen to a three-year entry-level contract.
Ceulemans, 19, was selected 25th overall by Columbus in 2021 as the third of three first-round picks. Rookie forward Kent Johnson went fifth overall and second-year Blue Jackets center Cole Sillinger was taken 12th.
“Corson Ceulemans is an outstanding young defenseman who excels at both ends of the ice and we are thrilled that he is beginning his professional career this spring,” Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said in a statement. “He combines size and strength with excellent mobility and a knack to produce offensively and we are excited about his future with our organization.”
Ceulemans, an offensive-minded defenseman, ran Wisconsin’s top power-play unit in both seasons he played for the Badgers. His sophomore season ended with a quarterfinal loss to the University of Michigan that dropped Wisconsin’s record to 13-23-0 and led to the firing of coach Tony Granato.
It also paved the way for Ceulemans to begin his professional career after posting nearly identical numbers in his two collegiate seasons. After contributing seven goals, 15 assists and 22 points in 34 games as a freshman, Ceulemans finished with 8-15-23 in 33 games this season.
His NHL contract starts in 2023-24, but Ceulemans will join the Cleveland Monsters, Columbus’ top affiliate in the American Hockey League, with an AHL tryout offer. After his signing, the Blue Jackets have 10 defensemen who are 24 or younger with NHL contracts for next season plus two 23-year-old restricted free agents – Tim Berni and Jake Christiansen.
Ceulemans has his work cut out within that group, which is headlined by 19-year-old David Jiricek – the sixth overall pick in 2022
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets maturing despite painful growing pains
