LOS ANGELES — Five observations on the Blue Jackets’ 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday at the Crypto.com Arena:
1. Desperate times
Two banks, two very different worlds.
The Blue Jackets learned just minutes before taking to the ice for Saturday’s warm-up that they were mathematically eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs for the second straight season.
Washington’s victory over Montreal was the final nail in the Blue Jackets’ coffin, despite weeks of preparation for the day.
On the bench was Los Angeles, who are in a dogfight for one of the last spots in the Western Conference and are trying to hold off Vegas, and were more than a little upset after an ugly 9-3 loss to Colorado just three days earlier.
“What was frustrating about that was the emphasis we put on them being a desperate team that’s going to come out strong,” said Blue Jackets center Sean Kuraly. “It wasn’t like it came as a surprise to us.
“We gave them a few mistakes that we’d like to have back.”
In the Blue Jackets’ defense, it’s almost impossible to replicate playoff-like intensity when you know the muck-out day will come just after the end of the season. In the first third, they fell 0-2 behind.
On the first goal, Blue Jackets forward Patrik Laine plowed into the defender
https://theathletic.com/3254424/2022/04/17/blue-jackets-kings-5-observations/?source=rss 5 Observations – The Athletic
