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Blue Jackets stumble in San Jose: Takeaways
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- Blue Jackets stumble in San Jose: Takeaways
The season is steadily slipping away from the Blue Jackets just one game past the midpoint of an 82-game grind.
After dropping their second consecutive game in a 5-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks to start a four-game road trip Jan. 6, they remain last in the Eastern Conference at 43 points and have eight teams to catch for the final playoff spot. Only six points separate them from that position, which is currently held by the Pittsburgh Penguins , but the daunting reality of their situation with 40 games left appears to be creeping into the Jackets' minds.
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More: Blue Jackets drop second in a row to open road trip against Sharks
Disappointment and anger have ceded to dejection during interviews after each new loss, because it's no longer early. The Blue Jackets (18-17-7) are officially on the back nine and need a miraculous charge up the leaderboard to even get a sniff of the postseason.
Nothing they've shown to date provides confidence they can pull that off, and things could get even more dire with three daunting matchups left to conclude this trip against the Vegas Golden Knights , Colorado Avalanche and Utah Mammoth .
Here are the takeaways from the loss to the Sharks:
Sharks center Zack Ostapchuk scores against Blue Jackets goalie Jet Greaves on Jan. 6.
Breakaways doom Columbus Blue Jackets in loss to San Jose Sharks
Jet Greaves was sharp in net, again, but the Sharks scored two key goals on clean breakaways that his teammates defended poorly.
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Pavol Regenda scored the first to give the Sharks a 1-0 lead with 48.4 seconds left in the first period, outracing Adam Fantilli and Zach Werenski for a pass from Alex Wennberg off a 2-on-1 rush that gave him a breakaway from the blue line.
Zack Ostapchuk did the same in the third, giving the Sharks a 3-1 lead off a breakaway with 4:44 left by outracing Denton Mateychuk and Cole Sillinger to a loose puck created by Werenski's errant pass from the San Jose zone. That stood up as the deciding goal after Blue Jackets center Sean Monahan made it 3-2 with a goal on the ensuing shift.
Both Sharks scorers used impressive speed bursts to create space to operate, but Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason felt his team's defensive plays were also an issue.
"Both plays on the breakaways, we're in position to get out and get on top of them," he said, "and we'll have to chat with some people about why we didn't ... our sense of urgency to get back there for that puck in order to at least make it a little more difficult for them to have a clear breakaway. We need to do a better job there."
Sharks left wing Pavol Regenda (84) celebrates with center Alexander Wennberg (21) and defenseman Mario Ferraro (38) after scoring a goal against the Blue Jackets on Jan. 6.
Columbus Blue Jackets literally paid a price for Alex Wennberg's big night
Wennberg led all scorers with three points on a goal and two assists for the Sharks, his fourth team since the Blue Jackets bought out the remaining three years of his contract Oct. 8, 2020, to make him an unrestricted free agent.
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Former Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen made that decision to free up salary-cap space by reducing Wennberg's cap number and salary from Columbus, but NHL buyouts are structured to double the term remaining. Wennberg had three years and $16.1 million left on his deal, which carried a $4.9 million cap charge, so the Blue Jackets added three additional seasons of payments to save $10.7 million in salary and free up $4.4 million in cap space.
At the time, he was 26 and underperforming his contract. It made sense to buy out the last three years and pay Wennberg to play elsewhere, but he's since become a productive veteran who will play for Sweden in the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics while forcing the Blue Jackets to count $891,667 against the cap for his final season on the purchased contract.
In other words, they paid a percentage of what the Sharks' top point producer made in salary to defeat his former team. No wonder NHL GMs are hesitant to buyout multiple years on contracts.
Jan 6, 2026; San Jose, California, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets right winger Mathieu Olivier (24) and San Jose Sharks right wing Ryan Reaves (75) fight in the second period at SAP Center at San Jose. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images
Columbus Blue Jackets fail to capitalize on Mathieu Olivier fight
A heavyweight rematch fight broke out late in the second between power forwards Mathieu Olivier and the Sharks' Ryan Reaves , ending with the former sending the latter to the ice with a couple of overhand rights to the head.
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It was a rematch of a fight they had while Reaves was with the Toronto Maple Leafs last season, which also ended with Olivier on top. Olivier has come the NHL's undisputed top fighter over the past two seasons, while Reaves has patrolled the league's heavyweight division for 16 years.
Reaves offered the invitation in Toronto, which Olivier accepted, so he returned the favor in this game. Olivier, hoping to build a spark after Werenski pulled the Blue Jackets within 2-1 late in the second, asked Reaves to fight during the ensuing draw. They dropped the gloves, sized each other up and then proceed to throw rapid fire punches at each other until Olivier ended it.
"He's been doing this for so long, it's very impressive how he's had the career he's had and he's been doing it year after year," Olivier said. "It was an open fight and anyone can get caught. Once I felt like he was going down, I tried to hold him up. He was all right. He came back and looked like nothing ever happened, so I was happy to see that."
Key injuries mounting for Columbus Blue Jackets
Mason Marchment , whom the Blue Jackets recently acquired from the Seattle Kraken , didn't play due to an upper-body injury that happened in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Jan. 4 at Nationwide Arena.
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That forced Evason to reconfigure his top line to reunite Dmitry Voronkov with Kirill Marchenko and Monahan, who returned to the lineup after missing four games with his own nagging injury. The Jackets are also missing depth forwards Miles Wood and Isac Lundestrom with lower-body injuries. Depth defensemen Erik Gudbranson and Brendan Smith are also out.
The Blue Jackets' injury report isn't nearly as lengthy as it's been in recent seasons, but it's still a challenge.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets stumble in San Jose: Takeaways
