They've officially entered the Twilight Zone.
There should be a signpost with those words etched on the front posted somewhere near Nationwide Boulevard and Front Street, right outside Nationwide Arena and its alleged ghosts.
Being trapped inside a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man is the only possible explanation left for what keeps happening to the Blue Jackets at the conclusion of games they should have in the bag. Time after time, they continue to live out the same nightmarish ending with just a couple cruel twists that make each a little different than the ones before it.
The one that gutted them Saturday night was their 12thblown lead of the season in a third period, leaving them again feeling dazed after somehow falling to the Minnesota Wild 4-3 in overtime in a game that all but belonged to Columbus after Cole Sillinger scored with 5:45 left to complete his second NHL hat trick .
A befuddled sellout crowd of 18,771 was forced to process another bizarre Blue Jackets collapse, which spoiled a night that included Sillinger playing like a star two-way center and goalie Daniil Tarasov looking sharp in net until the waning moments of regulation.
Once again, the Jackets' inexplicable inability to close things out at the end of games escaped its cage and proceeded to bite them, again, in the caboose. This time, the weirdness included Justin Danforth firing wide left at an empty net with a 3-2 lead and 1:44 left in regulation. Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury 's diving attempt to save it deserves mention for possibly changing Danforth's angle, but what happened next was entirely too predictable.
A turnover at the other end of the ice — the second by defenseman Ivan Provorov this season that has led to a late tying goal ― handed the puck to Minnesota's Ryan Hartman . The Wild forward carried up the right wing, slipped a pass to Marcus Johansson in the slot and watched as his linemate converted it into an equalizer that tied it 3-3 with 1:32 left. The goal took the air out of the building, again, and forced another OT that went sideways on the Jackets.
Fleury made two great saves against Blue Jackets forward Yegor Chinakhov before Marco Rossi ended it at 3:05 with a goal to beat Tarasov to the short side, forcing the Blue Jackets and their increasingly disgruntled fans to exit feeling perplexed.
The only explanation?
The Blue Jackets (13-19-9) are lost in a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. They're trapped in the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition ... a dimension that lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. It's a dimension of imagination and an area which we call ... the Twilight Zone.
Rod Serling's twisted creativity now lives through the Blue Jackets. Who knew he was a hockey fan?
Here are four more takeaways:
This was the 11thgame in which the Blue Jackets have coughed up a lead in the third period. It was the 12thlead they've lost in the third, since one of those 11 games, a 4-3 overtime loss Dec. 27 in New Jersey , featured two blown leads in the final 20 minutes.
It just keeps happening over and over.
The Blue Jackets dropped to 2-2-7 in games when they've coughed up a lead in the third period. They're also 2-1-5 when losing a lead in the last five minutes of regulation. Johansson's goal was also the fifth 6-on-5 goal scored against the Blue Jackets to tie a game in the final stages of regulation.
If there's any bright side, it's the anger about it that's now bubbling within the locker room and how much closer they keep getting to turning late leads into wins. The Jackets are no longer sitting back in a defensive bubble once they lead in the third. They're proactively challenging puck carriers and forcing the action.
They're just not getting enough saves on shots that should be stopped, not converting key scoring chances and committing too many errors that lead to tying or go-ahead goals.
"I think we're getting more frustrated, because we're understanding more what happens," coach Pascal Vincent said. "I think we're getting more mad. Early in the season, those things happen and without the experience you're not really sure (why), so we grow as a team. We understand what happens. We learned from those moments. Now, I feel like they're close. I feel like they can almost touch that win."
Being that close and still not winning, however, has cast a pall over the season.
"Every time, we've responded right," Vincent said. "The next practice was right, the mood was right, the next game was right. So, I really like the character of our team in bouncing back from those moments but the more you're involved, the more you put into something, when it doesn't work ... the more (angry) you are. And I think that's how they feel right now."
Sillinger only had four goals to his credit before his hat trick, but he's scoring more often and continues to make significant progress in other facets of the game.
It's making Sillinger the type of center they need him to become if this rebuild effort is going to work. He's winning faceoffs now, controlling the puck for longer stretches and getting to areas at both ends of the ice that two-way centers are required to patrol.
His goals against the Wild were great examples.
After standing out with some good decisions during the shift that led to the first one, Sillinger got the puck into the Minnesota zone and sent it around the boards. He raced to the low slot, getting ahead of Minnesota forward Nic Petan , and scored off a pass from Jake Bean for a 1-0 lead on his fifth goal of the season.
"That's where I want to score goals," Sillinger said. "I know I can score goals in this league and, I mean, I take a guy like Boone (Jenner) as a guy I look up to, and how many goals he scores from there. So, I just try to get myself to the front of the net."
On his second goal, Sillinger spotted right wing Kirill Marchenko 's theft of the puck inside the Wild zone and turned back into the high slot ready to shoot. Marchenko reversed a no-look feed from the bottom of the right circle and Sillinger one-timed it past Fleury under the crossbar for a 2-1 lead.
Sillinger's third goal, which caused fans to litter the ice with hats, was scored with a tip of Adam Boqvist 's shot from the point while standing in front of the net. Sillinger won the faceoff cleanly to Boqvist and then headed to the net-front.
He also won 10 of 18 faceoffs (56%) and led the Blue Jackets in both individual 5-on-5 scoring chances (5) and individual high-danger chances (3) while centering the second line.
"He was really good," Vincent said. "His game has been growing the whole year into a 200-foot player, winning big faceoffs, being big on the penalty kill. He scored a big goal on the power play tonight, but it's beyond that. It's his physicality, it's his routes defensively ... and he scored 16 two years ago, so we know he can score. He's growing into a 200-foot player."
The Blue Jackets missed captain Boone Jenner (fractured jaw) while shorthanded again. They allowed goals by Boldy on the Wild's first two of four power plays and both erased one-goal leads for Columbus.
The Jackets won just one of three shorthanded faceoffs in the first two periods and struggled to clear their zone as a result. Boldy's first goal was also scored five seconds after the Wild's Joel Eriksson Ek cleanly won the opening draw of Minnesota's first power play and then screened Tarasov on a one-timer from the right circle.
Sillinger and Danforth are both improving at faceoffs wins without Jenner, but there's no replacing the captain's 55.9% percentage in key situations like shorthanded and power play starts.
Sticking with a reconfiguration that worked in the third period Thursday in Philadelphia , the Blue Jackets rolled into the game against Minnesota with new looks up front and on the blue line.
Danforth stayed on the top line at right wing, skating with Johnny Gaudreau and rookie Adam Fantilli . The second line featured Sillinger centering Chinakhov and Marchenko. The third line had Kent Johnson at left wing, Jack Roslovic at center and Emil Bemstom on the right. The fourth line was centered by rookie Dmitri Voronkov with Alexandre Texier and Mathieu Olivier on the wings.
On the back end, Adam Boqvist rejoined the playing group after a shoulder strain and skated on the first pairing with Damon Severson . Ivan Provorov and rookie David Jiricek formed the second pairing. The third defense duo was Jake Bean and Erik Gudbranson .
The lines centered by Sillinger and Roslovic had the most success in puck possession and generation of scoring chances. Boqvist and Severson had the best night among blue-liners, followed by Bean and Gudbranson.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets fall to Wild in OT after another late meltdown
