Let’s get this out of the way – Sergei Bobrovsky has been better than he was last night.
That much should be apparent – Bobrovsky is (probably) the best goalie in the world. When he’s on, there’s nobody better between the pipes. He wasn’t at his best last night. That a middling effort happened to come in a much-anticipated game against the Penguins is unfortunate.
To place the blame at Bob’s feet is to miss the point entirely.
Sure, if he played to his Vezina form from last season, the Jackets stroll out of PPG Paints Arena with two points last night. That’s exactly how he played the last time out, in a shootout win against the Flyers. That’s the same form he displayed last time he was in Pittsburgh, just a week ago, when he stopped 39 of 41 and willed the Jackets into a shootout.
Bob’s shown a penchant over the years for pulling the Jackets’ asses out of the fire. His play (and a hot power play) helped Columbus reel off an incredible 16-game winning streak last season, which led to some bad Ryan Lambert columns the “unsustainable” meme. But it’s unfair to expect him to pull it off every time his teammates get shelled.
His stat line this month carries a weak .896 save percentage. That’s skewed by a seven-goal outing against Boston, in which his teammates absolutely quit in the third period, after getting out-played in the first and utterly dominated in the second. Columbus got out-shot 39-15 in that game. They posted a weak-as-hell Corsi for percentage of 33.33%. That number dropped in the last 40, when they let Boston attempt 73% of the shot attempts.
That is an abysmal effort. Pierre-Luc Dubois called out his teammates afterwards for giving up on the reigning Vezina winner, and rightly so.
Columbus has had just two games this season where their CF% as a team has dipped below 40%. The 7-2 loss to Boston, and the 3-2 overtime loss on the road against Pittsburgh two games later. Bob helped his team escape with a point in one of those. He wasn’t as strong in the other one. The Jackets had no business winning either game.
Death, taxes and Sergei Bobrovsky highlights. #CBJ pic.twitter.com/Hw6CE1ugEj
— 1st Ohio Battery (@1stOhioBattery) December 28, 2017
That .896 save percentage only tells a part of the story for Bobrovsky. His teammates gave up on him against Boston (his monthly save percentage number would jump 11 points if you excluded that game) and haven’t done much to protect him in other games this month. As a team, Columbus has given up the third most shots against this month, and have a penalty kill that ranks 25th in the league over that span.
Things might get even tougher for Bobrovsky over the next month, too.
Alexander Wennberg, when healthy, is a legit top-6 center who is solid in his own end. Cam Atkinson is a huge part of a penalty kill unit that struggled mightily without him last night. The Jackets were a far better defensive team before Ryan Murray got hurt, as he was enjoying perhaps his best season since his rookie year. Brandon Dubinsky, for all his warts, has been John Tortorella’s go-to shut down centerman since he took over behind the bench.
Watching the boys @BlueJacketsNHL vs the pens pic.twitter.com/26ybxfv10N
— Brandon Dubinsky (@BDubi17) December 28, 2017
All four of those players are out for the foreseeable future. And then there’s Zach Werenski, perhaps the closest of the five to returning, who is undoubtedly one of the best defenseman in the league. Without them, the rest of the roster is working overtime, but the Jackets will be out-manned in a lot of games until those players return.
Those injuries have forced the Jackets to bet on Bob to keep the team in it. There’s no such thing as a sure thing, but if you had to bet on one player in the team’s history to do it, Bobrovsky would be the odds-on favorite.
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