The Columbus Blue Jackets, a team ravaged by injuries early in this young season, have just lost four in a row.
Not only that, they’ve been thoroughly outscored in that span, giving up 18 goals and scoring only six during this recent funk.
On Friday, they dropped a 4-1 decision to the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs, with the trio of Phil Kessel, Nazem Kadri and Daniel Winnik providing a bulk of the scoring.
Not like the Maple Leafs are an unstoppable force. The two points they earned against Columbus brought the Leafs out of seventh in the Atlantic Division and ahead of the Florida Panthers - not necessarily a bruiser in the Eastern Conference. Yet Toronto managed to get its game going, particularly in the second period, before putting it away in the third.
“If we’re going to go down, let’s go down swinging and playing our way. No one’s going to feel sorry for us,” said Blue Jackets head coach Todd Richards, as per Rob Mixer, the digital content manager for the Columbus NHL team.
Did his club play not hard enough or not smart enough? Richards: "Both."
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) November 1, 2014