Blues At Blue Jackets Recap: Tired Blues Drop Game 4-1 To Jackets

The Blues' schedule is absolutely hellacious in April, and they're in the thick of it. This was their third game in four nights, and they looked absolutely gassed outside of the first, oh, five minutes or so of it. There's honestly not much to say, other than the focus was off, the "throw shit at the wall and see what wakes 'em up" line combinations weren't working, and Jake Allen got beaten by four instances of "just the tip-in," if you will.

I did mention in my preview or in the GDT write-up or somewhere that this whole "minimal scoring" thing isn't always going to work, considering that every game is not going to be a shutout. I hate being proven right about things. You can't fuss at the Blues for not trying, outshooting the Jackets by a wide margin, but the shots couldn't get through the wall that is Sergei Bobrovsky. The guy's on fire and he's doing it when his team needs him the most.

The Blue Jackets know that every win literally matters. The Blues? They're basically in the playoffs barring a huge implosion. What we saw tonight was a classic example of a team with the world to play for outgunning a team that was very obviously pooped.

The Blues need to get un-pooped, and fast. They have a game against the Chicago Blackhawks bright and early Sunday at 11:30, and the schedule gets harder from there. The Blues, after tonight's loss, have eight games in 15 games, which is basically a game every other day. There's a back to back next Thursday and Friday against Phoenix and Dallas, two other teams who may not be out of the playoff picture.

This was the last matchup between the Blues and Bluejackets as division rivals, as next season's realignment means that the Jackets are heading East where their time zone makes more sense. Great timing, too, because this team's starting to really play good hockey. Instead of being the li'l engine that tried, it looks like Davidson and the crew are turning them into the real deal. I'll enjoy watching them next season, I think -- because the Blues aren't going to be the team that has to deal with what they're turning into.