The Columbus Blue Jackets went into the Olympic Break as the hottest team in the NHL. However, coming out of the break they were not been able to win either of their first two games against the two teams directly ahead of them in the standings, the Boston Bruins and New York Islanders.
Where the Blue Jackets stand right now, the upcoming stretch feels like a massive turning point in the season, and they have to find a way to turn this bad stretch of play around as soon as possible. That can happen when the Blue Jackets take on the New York Rangers tonight at Madison Square Garden and then play four-straight home games over the next week.
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These are what we call must-win games, if that even counts as a thing. Games against the Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers, Utah Mammoth, and Los Angeles Kings pit the Blue Jackets against teams in similar playoff fights.
So, what three things do the Blue Jackets need to fix to break the trend of these recent games?
Going into the break the Blue Jackets goaltending tandem of Elvis Merzlikins and Jet Greaves had posted back-to-back shutouts. However, coming out of the break, they look to be just a bit unsettled in the crease. They have allowed some easy ones to squeak by which wouldn’t have happened when they were locked in.
Now, they have to figure out how to get back into that groove. Both Merzlikins and Greaves didn’t play awful in their return games, but their teams didn’t take advantage of the performance they put out there either. The Blue Jackets had chances in both games to win late, and in neither game did they manage to capture two big points.
The Blue Jackets need to lean back into the structure that head coach Rick Bowness runs so well, and they have to find a way to play staunch defense and take away passing lanes that have given teams golden opportunities in front.
Gold-medal winning defenseman Zach Werenski has continued to play great offensively, but he has to find his superb defensive status again, and the defensive unit as a whole has to be better. The Blue Jackets defensive core blocked 19 blocked shots in the two games since the break, which exceeds their season average of roughly seven blocked shots per game.
However, the goaltenders have been forced to make a lot of acrobatic saves, and a lot of that is due to defenders having bad positioning in front and allowing redirects and tips in front of the net. If the goaltending is going to get better, it will all start with the defense in front of them.
Stars Need to Take Over
No longer can this Blue Jackets team sit back and allow the game to come to them; they need to step up and take it. Werenski is one of the biggest pieces of that, and he has come back strong in two games offensively, but the rest of the offense hasn’t really been there.
We have seen Bowness call out both Kent Johnson and Dmitri Voronkov. These these guys didn’t seem to take it personally, but rather as an expectation to elevate their game. Johnson was even a healthy scratch in the Blue Jackets’ most-recent game against the Islanders on Saturday.
Kent Johnson a healthy scratch. #CBJ pic.twitter.com/ZeiSnpHAv5
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) February 28, 2026
There is the expectation for Johnson to step up and be a massive offensive piece moving forward, and his offensive output had a really nice jump when Bowness took over. However, that hasn’t been the case in the past few games, and he needed some sort of a spark to revive his play.
The Blue Jackets don’t have a lot of glaring holes as constructed, but they also don’t have a superior-enough scoring forward for their recent lapses in depth scoring. The closest thing they have to a top scorer is Kirill Marchenko, and even at that he’s been inconsistent at times this season.
Too often, the Blue Jackets have started super hot but haven’t been able to stay on the gas and finish games out. They had a first-period lead in both losses recently, and dominated the entire period both times. However, the second period is when things caught up to them.
Keep Pushing for a Full 60 Minutes
One of the biggest issues that eventually cost former head coach Dean Evason his job was the team’s inability to close games out in the third period. How they were able to get over that hump and find success in the third period was Bowness getting them to play within a system.
Now they find themselves on the brink of falling into a really difficult place to dig out of in the playoff race, and also struggling to play a complete game against playoff-calibre opponents. They have come out of the gates hot, and have played near perfect first periods, but the periods beyond that have not been good enough.
So, with the projection of the Blue Jackets hanging on by a thread in the playoff race, they have to find a way to fix the middle-period lull they have right now.
The Playoff Report 📊
A deep dive into how the playoff race is trending going into the stretch drive.
📈 ANA, BUF, BOS, CBJ
📉 FLA, NJD, WSH, EDMhttps://t.co/3igmRlKq2A pic.twitter.com/uPpv2Ox5JD— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) February 25, 2026
They have to find some sort of bump from somewhere to jump over their bubble status and capture enough momentum for the rest of the season to get in the dance. If they book a ticket into the playoffs, the Blue Jackets have enough talent to make a real push and are a team not many Eastern Conference opponents would want to see.
There is work to be done to get there, but they have shown plenty of glimpses in the past of being a good enough team to take out some of the most talented teams in the league. They went toe-to-toe offensively with the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier this season and own a pair of dominant wins over the Dallas Stars as well
They have the talent to do it, but just need to put it in all together. The Blue Jackets have shown they can do it, now we get to see if the playoff expectations many of the younger guys put on this team can come to fruition.
