The Columbus Blue Jackets may have lost, but head coach Dean Evason gave his club full marks for its third-period effort against the New Jersey Devils on Monday night.
"It was friggin' awesome," he said after Columbus' 2-1 defeat. "Did we get the result? No. Did we play the right way? Do we believe that this is the turning point? Do we believe that this is one that, not only the period, the game that turns us around and we're ready to go forward? Yeah, 100%.
"We played our asses off, guys."
The Jackets entered the last frame down 2-0, and though forward Mathieu Olivier would net their only goal of the game with less than seven minutes left, they could've scored a lot more.
Columbus outshot New Jersey 24-3 in the final 20 minutes and 46-20 overall. The Blue Jackets also held an outlandish 50-7 advantage in shot attempts at all strengths in the third period, as well as a 12-1 edge in high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.
"Obviously we believed we could do it," Olivier said. "I thought we had a decent game overall, we just had a second goal (against) that's kind of a fluke. Just cost us the game."
New Jersey scored twice in 39 seconds in the middle stanza, with the second goal coming off a misplay behind Columbus' net.
Devils goaltender Jake Allen made 45 stops in the contest and saved 2.62 goals above expected in the last stanza alone.
"They're a desperate team and they threw everything they could at the net and we would have been doing the same thing in that situation," the netminder said, per beat reporter Sam Kasan. "It wasn't pretty. But we found a way to get it done. That's all that matters right now."
This defeat was the Jackets' fourth in a row and sixth of their last seven outings. They were shut out in their previous two contests.
Columbus is currently two points behind the New York Rangers for the second-wild card spot with one game in hand, though the Jackets held the first wild-card spot before their current skid.
Olivier made it clear he and his teammates aren't interested in obsessing over their precarious positioning with 15 games left on the schedule.
"Our job is to go out there and play hockey and get the job done. ... I'm not going to go home and dwell on the standings or the two points we didn't get or whatever," he said. "I'm gonna focus on the next game (Thursday) against Florida and try to recreate a similar performance but with a better result."
