No 'O'

Even by outshooting the Nashville Predators 43-25 and keeping Jacket killers Arnott/Dumont/Radulov off the score sheet the Columbus Blue Jackets found a way to lose, yet again, to the Preds 2-0.

Why?

Once again no offense and you couple that with two bad goals by Freddy Norrena and lose for the 7th time in 8 games to the Preds.

There are a lot of "what ifs" this season but where could this team be if they hadn't given the Predators 15 of 16 points?

Lit it up

Jared Boll. Kid once again did his job and took care of Tootoo 3 minutes into the game. Tootoo, like he usually does, tried to get the drop early but this isn't Jan Hejda your fighting here bub....Boll took a couple early punches and then went on to control the fight and got the decision... in fact, Tootoo had to leave the game for a bit to get repairs. Quite honestly I'm surprised Tootoo had the guts to face Boll.

Jason Chimera. Talk about lighting up Darcy Hordichuk. That hit was beautiful and certain to be played over and over again on CBJ highlight reels.

Dim the light

Clay Wilson. Kid played over 22 minutes. Sure he had a couple of turnovers but once again he made all kinds of things happen. I just can't get over how bad he makes a guy like Hainsey really look offensively.

Hejda and Klesla did their job shutting down Nashville's top line. Unfortunately they got no help on the scoreboard.

Jackets only took 3 penalties which is pretty good for them and the PK killed em all off.

Decent crowd of over 15,500 but I sure do miss the days of that placed being packed for a Friday night game.

Busted bulbs

Not sure which was worse - Freddy No or the offense. What is unfortunate is that any weak goal given up is magnified X1000 because of this offense's inability to score. So when Freddy gives up two bad ones is almost always game over.

PP. Better movement but again failed to convert.

Nash with only 16 minutes last night. He did have 7 shots and I didn't think he played a bad game.

3 bright lights on the night

1. Jared Boll. You know he still had to be hurting but he showed up and did his job out there. Love this kid.

2. Hit on Hordy. Karma isn't it? Hordichuk running his mouth and gets embarrassed by Jason Chimera's hit onto the CBJ bench. Only thing that could have made that play better is if he went into Nashville's bench right onto Tootoo -- but I'll certainly take it the way it happened.

3. Wilson. I continue to be impressed by this kid. I think Hainsey is gone regardless but his emergence will make that decision easier.

Whelp the Jackets still have a shot at Stamkos. They are currently the 6th worst team in the league with St. Louis and NYI Islanders 5 and 4 points behind them respectively. Of course on the other side of that is there are 3 teams ahead of them with 80 points and 1 with 81 so if the Jackets decide to win a few of these remaining games and the rest lose, they could easily end up outside the top 10.

Unfortunately (or depending how you look at it, fortunately) I don't see that happening. I think they'll be lucky to split their remaining four games of which 3 are on the road.

-LTL