The Blue Jackets spent the opening 20 minutes looking every bit like the team that had something to prove.
Back home after a flat showing in St. Louis on Saturday night, Columbus skated out with pace and purpose against the Florida Panthers.
For one period, it worked. The Jackets controlled the tempo, outshot Florida 10-8, and got the game’s first goal off some slick work from Kent Johnson.
It was, by this account, one of their better periods of the season.
Then the game turned on a sequence that summed up the night perfectly: one small mistake, then everything unraveled.
Florida’s push started with a Blue Jackets faceoff win to the right of Cam Talbot’s net. Charlie Coyle was kicked out of the circle, Cole Sillinger stepped in and won it clean, and the puck went where Columbus wanted it - behind the net.
From there, Carson Soucy had options. He could move it up the boards to an uncovered Coyle, or slide it to his defense partner in the middle.
Instead, he tried to flip the puck out to the neutral zone and ended up handing it to Matthew Tkachuk, who set up Brady Tkachuk to tie it. The head-scratcher was that Soucy made the play without any real pressure on him; the forward nearby was already peeling away to back-check.
That was the spark Florida needed. From there, the Panthers took control, and the Blue Jackets kept helping them along.
Columbus took five minor penalties and one major, giving Florida far too many chances on the power play. Of the six penalty-kill situations they faced, the Jackets only survived two.
The Tkachuk brothers did the heavy damage. Brady Tkachuk scored a natural hat trick in the second period and added an assist in the third, while Matthew Tkachuk finished with five helpers.
The maddening part for Columbus is that, at even strength, the game wasn’t nearly as lopsided as the score suggested. The Jackets outshot Florida 24-19 at 5-on-5, and per MoneyPuck, they had the edge in expected goals in those situations. But the penalties wrecked their rhythm, took away their ability to roll four lines, and left too many players sitting too long.
The Blue Jackets managed a couple of goals in garbage time, but by then the night had already been decided. In the end, it was another lesson in how quickly a promising start can disappear when discipline goes out the window.
We’re still waiting for that culture change, Rick.
In Other News...
Rick Bowness Calls Out Blue Jackets Over Effort And Standards
Rick Bowness did not try to soften the blow after Columbus was routed by Florida, a 7-3 loss that left the Blue Jackets searching for answers yet again. The coach was plainly frustrated by the way his team played, hoping the performance serves as a jolt for a group that has now dropped three of its last four and continues to fight for consistency early in the season.
The Panthers took control behind Brady Tkachuks natural hat trick, but for Bowness the larger issue has been the same one he has raised before: effort, culture and the standard the Blue Jackets are supposed to meet every night. He has already spent parts of the 2025-26 season challenging his roster on those fronts, and after another uneven showing, the message is becoming impossible to miss. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Let A Strong Start Slip After A Costly Turning Point
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Then the turning point arrived, and it swung the game hard. A slashing penalty on Mathieu Olivier led to a lengthy major and opened the door for the other side to seize control, with the momentum of the night shifting on special teams in a way Columbus could not answer. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Suddenly Have A Mathieu Olivier Problem They Can't Ignore
Mathieu Olivier has spent enough time around the Blue Jackets to know what kind of edge he brings to the lineup, but lately that edge has started to cut both ways. In a recent game against the Florida Panthers, the Columbus forward was sent off with a five-minute major and a game misconduct after slashing defenseman Uvis Balinskis in a sensitive area, a sequence that quickly turned an already tense night into one the Blue Jackets had to absorb shorthanded.
It was the third time in five games that Oliviers decisions have worked against Columbus, after an unsportsmanlike penalty on opening night and a fight with Ross Johnston that came at a moment when the games momentum shifted away from the Blue Jackets. For a player whose style is supposed to help set a tone, the larger concern now is whether the team can keep paying for those flashes of agitation, especially with no word yet from the NHLs Department of Player Safety on whether further discipline is coming. [Read more 🡒]