COLUMN: Blues got what they deserved in losing to another lowly team

Interim coach Drew Bannister spoke in the morning of not looking ahead and focusing on business on Tuesday night.

Here's what he said when I asked him about being focused on an opponent, the first one they've faced this month, that's below them in the standings:

"I just think we've come too far, we've worked too hard to get ourselves to this position to not be ready for tonight," Bannister said. "It shouldn't matter who we're playing. Our break ends after the game here tonight, so we've got to make sure that we're ready to start."

Well, that message apparently was either never relayed, which I have a hard time believing, or the players just didn't take another lower opponent seriously, which has been evident already this season.

In the end was a 1-0 loss against the Blue Jackets, who came into the game last in the Metropolitan Division, wipes away what the Blues (26-21-2) had just done the past week and a half.

And when I say this isn't the first time they were no-shows against some of the lesser opponents, they are now 3-4-0 against the four last place teams from each division, including the Blue Jackets, Ottawa Senators, Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks, who all have a combined record of 62-115-18, good for a robust .318 winning percentage.

Yikes.

Aside from Jordan Binnington, who allowed just one goal on 22 shots, it was hard to pick anyone on this night that stood out and could be classified as a difference maker.

This was a team that was in a dead-heat race, and still is, for a spot in the Western Conference wild card. They came in tied with the Los Angeles Kings and Nashville Predators tied with 54 points. A win guarantees you're in that position with 10 days to think about how far you've come for another 10 days until the next game Feb. 10 at Buffalo.

Instead, "I think this one's going to sit there for a while," Bannister said.

It won't taste as good as an Imo's Pizza, I can tell you that. It'll sit in their stomachs more like a can of pickled beets.

It was evident from puck drop that nobody was interested in skating, nobody was interested in "playing for one another," which has been echoed in the locker room this month, it was evident effort was lagging severely. Columbus came to play a hockey game. The Blues were more concerned with their flight times to whatever beaches they'll be on Wednesday.

Passes weren't crisp, they weren't in sync. Shooting pucks seemed like a foreign concept. 

Plain and simple, the Blues got exactly what they deserved on Monday.

"Yeah, we did," Bannister said. "We didn't play well enough to win a hockey game here tonight, no question about that.

"The first period, we weren't skating, we weren't engaged at all. The second period I thought we started to skate a little bit more, but we were playing cute hockey and cute hockey doesn't win at this level.

"Everybody was a passenger tonight. There was no one that really stood out and led the way and got us going."

The Blues didn't get their 10th shot of the game(!) on Elvis Merzlikins, who did make a tremendous save on Jake Neighbours 1:18 into the third period with a right pad save, until early in the third period.

This is a Blue Jackets squad that was playing the last of a five-game road trip, an arduous one, and one that couldn't put a game away -- and really hasn't all season long -- to save their souls.

Tyler Tucker, who hasn't played since Dec. 21, tried to ignite a fire with a second-period fight with Columbus tough guy Mathieu Olivier.

Columbus had just one win when the game was tied this season heading into the third period. Even as poorly as the Blues played through two periods, they still had the chance to salvage two points with a semblance of effort in the third period.

It didn't come until it was too little, too late.

"Not surprised by the result of how we played, but surprised by how we reacted and started the game and played the game, no question," Bannister said. "I don't know. The break's the break. The break (starts) after the game. We had a hockey game here to play and it was two important points and we let it slip away."

All it took was one breakdown and mistake and it was a deficit apparently too much to overcome.

The Blue Jackets scored the lone goal at 4:11 of the third period after the Blues entered the Jackets zone with Robert Thomas, who along with his linemates Pavel Buchnevich and Jordan Kyrou were poor the entire game, spinning along the right wall. He sees Kyrou trying to get to the middle of the ice, yet tried to force a puck into the middle of the ice with no one there, defensemen Torey Krug and Matthew Kessel were lagging back at the blue line, it gets picked off and Columbus was off to the races. Defenseman Zach Werenski split the two defensemen, fed Dmitri Voronkov for a one-timer from the slot and it was 1-0.

"The entry. We had guys pulling up when we should have been driving to the net to open up the plays that we're coming late and it would have opened up, but for some reason, we decided to pull up just inside the blue line instead of finishing routes to the net," Bannister said. "... We weren't together as units of five. We weren't skating. From the start, we didn't skate, so there wasn't support around the puck and we weren't able to establish a forecheck because we weren't skating."

I should say I'm shocked given the results -- not so much performances -- of late by the Blues, but I'm really not. We've seen this result against poor teams before.

Again, I give full marks to the Blue Jackets (16-24-10), who defeated the Blues 5-2 on Dec. 8 in Columbus, for showing up to play a hockey game.

Unfortunately, their counterparts thought this would be a walk in the park when they have no business looking past anyone but continue to want to learn the lesson the hard way.

"We obviously didn't have our best game," Blues forward Brandon Saad said. "... "We kind of seemed out of sync out there but I think it goes back to the willingness and competing and getting around the net. I think we just played too perimeter soft hockey and they competed hard."

"I thought we had a slow start," Blues center Kevin Hayes said. "Things have been going well here and I thought we waited too long and it came back to bite us. Those are important points."

You're not going to win them all, but in the grand scheme of things, Blues have now left eight points on the table against those last-place teams. Imagine how four or five, maybe six of those points would look now. And tonight was a microcosm of why this team will hang around and tickle Blues fans' fancy long enough but is more than likely destined to be on the outside looking in again.

It's a prime example of GM Doug Armstrong watching and realizing that making a move/moves won't make this compiled roster good enough to not just get in the playoffs but make a deep run. Armstrong is never about just getting in, and I don't think they're good enough to even do that.

When you can get up for the top-tiered teams like the Blues have throughout this month to put themselves in a good position, then soil the bed against teams they should beat, as Bannister said, cute hockey doesn't win at this level.

I just don't get how you can get up to play the Vancouver Canucks, the Carolina Hurricanes, the New York Rangers and even the Boston Bruins of the words but not the Columbus Blue Jackets. Those points mean exactly the same. These Blues players somehow don't seem to get that.