{"id":20032,"date":"2018-05-01T10:44:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T15:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=20032"},"modified":"2018-05-18T11:33:56","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T16:33:56","slug":"blue-jackets-lose-in-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/05\/01\/blue-jackets-lose-in-first-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jackets lose in first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Game six came to a close with a Blue Jackets loss to the Capitals, marking the end of the series and sending the Blue Jackets home in the first round in the second straight season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0As the season came to a close, the Blue Jackets were on a tear and seemed to be peaking at the right time, including two straight playoff wins against the Capitals in games one and two, both played in Washington, D.C. That melted away quickly as the Blue Jackets went on to lose four straight games, ending their playoff run.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cEverybody has to give skin here, from coaches right on through, as far as what happened,\u201d head coach John Tortorella said in his exit interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Tortorella believes the team\u2019s standards need to be raised in order for them to get to the next level.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201c\u201dI think we need to get by this \u2018Young team, yeah, you went through some really good experiences,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cNo, we need to start thinking that we are a playoff team and that when we get the opportunity we need to be better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"download.jpeg\"\u00a0 \u00a0The Blue Jackets finished the season at 45-30-7, earning the first wild card spot in the playoffs. This was only the fourth playoff appearance for Columbus, and the first time they made the playoffs in back to back seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI think we\u2019re in a good spot,\u201d general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. \u201cCan we get better? Absolutely. And we will. We\u2019ll look at every opportunity to do that. There\u2019s no question about it. Like [John] said, the standard has to be make the playoffs every year. We\u2019re going to be better. We\u2019re going to win a series, and then two, and three, and hopefully get to the Stanley Cup Final. That\u2019s the goal. You want to win the Cup.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The Blue Jacket are the only NHL franchise to never win a playoff series, losing all four first round matchups. This includes their five-game playoff run last season against the Penguins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re going to talk about how there was some progression within our game, within the individuals, but we\u2019re six games and we\u2019re done,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to get away from. I want us to be more aggressive in our thinking and expect some more, not be satisfied as far as the process. We need to change our mindset here to where \u2026 that we feel we belong in the playoffs, not just be [in]. That\u2019s what worries me when I keep answering these questions about, \u2018Was it a good year?\u2019 We played six games in the playoffs. Six. One more than last year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0There are still eight teams left in the race for Lord Stanley\u2019s Cup, but until next year the Blue Jackets are going back to the drawing board.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul Helmers<\/strong>
\nSports Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Game six came to a close with a Blue Jackets loss to the Capitals, marking the end of the series and sending the Blue Jackets home in the first round in the second straight season. \u00a0 \u00a0As the season came to a close, the Blue Jackets were on a tear and seemed to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":20033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2107,3],"tags":[2602,949,2601,2085,1383,2603],"class_list":["post-20032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-tartan-news","tag-blue-jackets","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-paul-helmers","tag-sports","tag-stanley-cup"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Columbus_Blue_Jackets_vs._San_Jose_Sharks_March_2007.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5d6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20071,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20032\/revisions\/20071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}