Following a collapse in the second period and a lack of finish on the offensive end (a poor power play didn't help), the Blue Jackets lost to the New Jersey Devils in a match-up of the top two Metropolitan teams, a 4-1 final.
Here are post-game thoughts from John Tortorella and some Blue Jackets players.
John Tortorella
On the game: "I thought we had a good first period. I thought we lost ourselves after we scored our goal, and they fed it to us the second and third period, just as far as puck battles, as far as the forecheck, their quickness. We had I think 41 shots, [Devils goaltender Cory Schneider] probably saw 40 of them. The only shot that he didn't see was the goal, so don't get fooled by the shots. And I'm not sure what the zone time was, but we were on the outside."
On the Devils coming in motivated: "Jersey got spanked 5-0 in their last game, you know they're gonna come. And they're a good team. We were out-quicked, we were outworked, they were more tenacious."
On rebound chances: "They had 11 scoring chances on second attempts. We had zero. 41 shots, zero rebounds. Tells you a lot."
Nick Foligno
On not converting offensive zone time into goals: "We're getting glorious chances and grade A's. More times than not those plays are going to develop into offense and good scoring, and tonight they didn't."
On the Devils: "Credit to them, they played the right way the whole game and we didn't. That's really the difference. We had some lapses where they capitalized on."
Seth Jones
On not converting: "We can have 25 minutes of in-zone time offensively, but if we don't score goals, it doesn't mean anything."
On improving zone time: "I think a lot of the chances we got tonight we didn't force, we let the game come to us."
Jack Johnson
On converting defense to offense: "You have to play defense as a five-man unit, and hopefully if you're playing well defensively then you can cause your own turnover and go the other way."
On the difference between playing the Devils this year versus last year: "I think that they've improved, no question."
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