Blue Jackets Struggle To Create Offense; Islanders Use Special Teams To Beat Columbus

Kent Johnson(13-PPG) scored the only goal for Columbus, and Elvis Merzļikins stopped 22 of 25 Isles shots in a 3-1 loss Monday night.

The Jackets played a decent first period and led after one, but it was a completely different story when the second came around.

The New York Islanders special teams are typically awful, but on Monday night, they used them to bury the CBJ in the second period. The NYI scored an even-strength goal, a power-play goal, and tacked on a shorthanded goal for good measure. Bo Horvat scored a PPG 5:47 into the third which would be the final nail in Monday's coffin.

It was ugly on Monday night.

Mathieu Olivier said after the game, "It's a playoff race. Teams are gonna tighten it up, so we can't have any lapses like we had in the second. We gotta be dialed in for a full 60 minutes here."

Dean Evason said, "We didn't have any pop in tonight's hockey game. We were slow in all areas. We thought slow, we skated slow, we passed slow. It looked like we were stuck in a bit of mud."

Final Stats

Player Stats

• Kent Johnson scored his 13th goal of the season.

• Kirill Marchenko recorded his 32nd assist.

• Dmitri Voronkov tallied his 14th assist.

• Elvis Merzļikins made 22 saves and picked up his 11th loss of the year.

Team Stats

• The CBJ PP scored on 1 of 4 chances.

• The Jackets PK stopped 1 of 2 Islanders' power plays.

• Columbus only won 32% of the faceoffs.

What's Next - The Blue Jackets travel to Toronto to play the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.

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