Goalie Meltdown or Defensive Meltdown For The Blue Jackets

It's never a good thing when a team loses big, but it always happens once a year, at least, to every team. It always ends up with the players being embarrassed, the home fans feeling like they have been ripped off (if they played at home), and the coach very, very unhappy.

That's the exact situation that the Columbus Blue Jackets are in after their 9-1 loss against the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night.

You don't lose that big by having a bad offense. Games like this are contributed to a defensive meltdown, or a goal tending melt down. Either way, it doesn't happen in the attacking zone.

The first thing that I would like to say is that a defensive melt down can be bailed out by a good goalie and a goalie melt down can be bailed out by good defense. When a team loses this big, both have to share the blame because neither of them did their jobs correctly.

I was listening to the Detroit announcers talk about what was wrong with the Columbus team, and they changed my mind a little. At first, I thought that the loss needed to be put on the goalie's shoulders because he needs to have better than a .769 save percentage (between both goalies).

That's true, but the bigger problem were the shots that the Blue Jacket Defense was giving the Wings. They were giving the Wings too many opportunities to score from the front of the net. They weren't giving their goalies a chance to stop the puck, and that's the biggest reason the score was so lopsided.

I really don't think that this says much about the Columbus team. We all know that they weren't playing their best, and most teams give up a big loss at some point during the season. I think that Ken Hitchcock is going to give his team a good talking to and they will come out in their next game to prove that they are a good team.

If they don't then we can expect to see a slump from the Blue Jackets and a lot of losing. This loss will either renew their drive to succeed and make them play harder, or take the momentum away from the team and make them lose many more games, it all depends on how well they play in their next game.

This was originally posted on tipsforhockey.com

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