I'm going to save most of my comments about the Blue Jackets 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres for tonight's 'Fire The Cannon' show that starts at 7pm but suffice to say that coaching decisions have to start to come into question.
Cody Bass, who completely got it handed to him in the first period as he was involved in two fights and a scrum that was strong enough for him to earn a roughing call, ended up with 8:54 of ice time and 12 minutes of penalty time. No big deal right until you look and see that Derek MacKenzie gets 5:16, Maksim Mayorov 6:16 and prior game hero and a player that head coach Scott Arniel stated that John Moore was figuring out what his role is made his role on the bench with 8:36 total ice time.
Blue Jackets penalty kill continues to be loathsome as they killed off 1 of 3 power plays the Sabres had. At 64.7% the team is 7.6 percentage points away from being 29th in the NHL on the penalty kill. Their over 20 percentage points from being middle of the pack in the league. When you have a part of your team's game that is so revolting that it can be specifically pointed to as to what is costing the team wins, it's all hands on deck.
Instead of changing the way Arniel handles Rick Nash and incorporate him into the penalty kill, he continues to sit one of the best penalty killers in the league on the bench not able to effect and change what is killing the team he captains. Derek Dorsett on the other hand had 1:24 of PK time which was 21 seconds more than any other CBJ player. Dorsett is all heart and effort but game decisions come into question and he has the reach with his stick of Mighty Mouse. To make it worse is that the second most penalty kill time was Aaron Johnson (Sammy Pahlsson also had the same amount as Johnson) with 1:03. The total kill time for the team was 2:04 yet R.J. Umberger got 21 seconds and Antoine Vermette collected 22 seconds of time on the ice with the team a man down which was almost as much as Bass who had 18 seconds.
There will be plenty more tonight on the 'FTC' show that you won't want to miss as the cannon is fully loaded with gun powder and I'm ready to fire off!
Tonight, Lori Schmidt may have to restrain me to my seat as my co-host. We will talk about the win against the Red Wings and also the loss to the Sabres.
We will also preview the Blackhawks game as we will have John Jaeckel who covers Chicago for HockeyBuzz.com. We'll discuss what is different with the changes that Chicago made in the off season, what is the same and how Patrick Kane likes playing center.
Little of This, Little of That," will bring in Jeff Little who will give us more Blue Jackets' perspective and I'm guessing that the glass that his half full might get thrown up against the wall.
We will also have our prospect of the week award too.
You won't want to miss this show and it all starts at 7pm Friday night.
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