Who turned the power off on the Blue Jackets’ scoring machine?
Almost a week after setting a franchise record with their 12th game of six-plus goals in a rout over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, somebody pulled the plug in front of 18,464 Saturday night at sold-out Nationwide Arena. The Rangers struck back with goalie Igor Shesterkin pitching his second shutout of the season against the Blue Jackets in a 4-0 victory that gave New York the second wild card in the Eastern Conference and bumped Columbus out of a playoff spot with 16 games left.
“The last two games, we (scored) zero goals," said Kirill Marchenko, who leads the Blue Jackets with 25 goals. "It’s not enough, and we need to work on that. We have good (scoring) chances. We (had) a lot of shots in these last two games, but we don’t have goals. We don’t have the luck, but maybe we need to work harder.”
It was the Blue Jackets' second straight shutout loss and their third in six games since downing the Detroit Red Wings, 5-3, on March 1 at Ohio Stadium in the 2025 NHL Stadium Series matchup.
Alexis Lafreniere and former Blue Jackets star Artemi Panarin scored goals in the first two periods to give the Rangers (33-28-6) a 2-0 lead and Shesterkin (20 saves) did the rest for his fourth career blanking of Columbus. Daniil Tarasov (18 saves) started for the Blue Jackets while Elvis Merzlikins took a leave of absence to be with his wife who's expecting their second child.
Vincent Trocheck added two insurance goals for New York in the third, including the second into an empty net for the final score of 4-0. The loss was another gut punch for the Blue Jackets (31-27-8), who’ve took their second straight shutout loss and haven’t scored a goal since Mathieu Olivier’s goal 10:29 into the third period of a 5-3 loss Tuesday at the New Jersey Devils.
They've gone a span of 129:31 without a goal, which the Jackets simply can’t afford while trying to stay afloat among seven teams within four points of the second wild-card spot.
New York led 1-0 after the first period on a goal by Lefreniere that followed the Blue Jackets’ second straight start without scoring.
Mika Zibanejad did everything but score the Ranger’s first goal, poking the puck off Blue Jackets defenseman Damon Severson’s stick, chasing it down, lifting Tarasov’s stick outside the left post and tapping a pass to Lefreniere for a shot into the empty net.
“The puck just came back," Severson said. "I think 'Tarry' just missed it. Unfortunately, I think he expected it to come off the boards a little quicker and it didn’t, and it was out of his trapezoid and he kind of got caught there. I was going back battling with (Zibanejad), and it was just kind of a cluster of bad things that could happen there.”
It was the third straight time the Blue Jackets allowed the game’s first goal, which lessened their odds of winning just 1:43 into the game. The Jackets, who are 24-9-5 when scoring first, dropped to just 7-18-3 when allowing the first goal.
Lafreniere’s goal was the only one for either team in the first, which ended with the Blue Jackets holding a 9-4 edge in shots. Panarin made it 2-0 with 8:24 left in the second, scoring against his former team just 24 seconds after the Rangers killed off a power play.
That, however, wasn’t the Jackets' biggest sting of that period.
That happened at 8:12 when Dmitri Voronkov was set up alone in the low slot with a backhand feed from Adam Fantilli. After deking Shesterkin to the ice with a great move to his forehand, the Russian power forward slid his attempted shot off the bottom of the right post on the far side and out of the crease. Rather than tying it 1-1, the puck caromed away and Voronkov slammed his stick into the end boards.
That’s largely how it’s gone for the Jackets since they torched the Rangers a week ago. Next up is a rematch Tuesday against the New Jersey Devils, who defeated them 5-3 this past Tuesday at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
“We’re getting down the stretch here," Fantilli said. "Guys (on other teams) are starting to tighten it up defensively. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to create our own chances and score. We had a couple and didn’t bear down on them. ... we’ve all got to find a way to put it in the back of the net.”
