Columbus carries a narrow margin into Montreal tonight after a 5-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres left the Blue Jackets with three games remaining and still chasing the teams in front of them. They sit on 90 points, two behind Philadelphia for third in the Metropolitan Division and one behind the Islanders, with Ottawa holding the final wild card spot at 94 points going into its game at the Islanders.
The Blue Jackets had chances in Buffalo but never found a finish. Colten Ellis stopped all 37 Columbus shots in the Sabres’ 5-0 win, even as the Blue Jackets owned the underlying play at 5-on-5 with shot attempts of 57-40, high-danger chances of 13-6 and expected goals of 2.47-1.43. Rick Bowness put it plainly after the loss: “Their goalie stole the game for them tonight.”
That is why tonight’s visit to the Canadiens matters more than a routine stop on the schedule. It is Columbus’ final road game of the season, and the pressure is straightforward: make up ground while there is still ground to make up. The Blue Jackets entered the game needing points, and the standings leave little room for anything else.
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Bowness tried to frame the loss in terms of process, not panic. “Listen, if we play like that again on Saturday, we’ll be fine,” he said, adding that the second period was “one of the best periods we played all year” even though the team “came out of it with nothing to show for it.” He also said, “That was all us in the second period,” before stressing, “It’s just taking care of that next shift, the next period.”
Jordan Jenner sounded a little more direct about the frustration and the belief inside the room. “We worked really hard for all those chances, and it didn’t go our way tonight,” he said, but added, “There’s a ton of belief in here.” Columbus will need some of that belief to show up quickly. Greaves will start in net for the Blue Jackets, Christiansen will go back into the lineup for Zamula, and Damon Severson remains out for the season after shoulder surgery. Mathieu Olivier and Dmitri Voronkov are both scratched because of upper-body injuries.
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The next step is simple and unforgiving. Columbus has to turn a night that looked better than the scoreboard into points before the season runs out, and Montreal is the last road chance to do it.
