COLUMBUS Toronto Maple Leafs Hats Authentic , Ohio — For some reason, the Columbus Blue Jackets aren’t feeling at home in their own arena.The Blue Jackets’ record at Nationwide Arena dropped to 7-6-1 with a 4-0 loss on Saturday night to the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals. They’ll get another crack at trying to fix their home woes on Tuesday night when they host the Vancouver Canucks (13-16-3).Article continues below ...The home struggles are confounding to Blue Jackets players and coach John Tortorella considering their road record is a formidable 9-5-1. The same intensity doesn’t appear to be there on their own ice. “What happens during a season is things go well for you and you start to go down a weird road,” Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno told reporters on Monday. “We’ve gone too far down that. We’ve got to get back to checking and playing hard defense. We did everything not to win the game. They did everything to win the game.”To remain in the upper echelon of the Metropolitan Division, the Blue Jackets (16-11-2) have to figure out their issues in a hurry. The matchup against the Canucks is the second game of a six-game homestand. Columbus has nine home games in December and its record is already 0-2.Tortorella wasn’t happy with the performance against the Capitals and direct in his assessment. He promised changes, including the duties of the coaching staff, to get the train back on the tracks. “It was disgusting,” Tortorella said, according to the team’s website. “After our loss home, what a debacle 9-6 (to Calgary last Thursday), to show up on Saturday night for first place seeding, at least this time of the year, against the team that knocked us out of the playoffs Custom Toronto Maple Leafs Jerseys , in front of, I guess, pretty basically a full house, it’s embarrassing.“We did not compete. We sensed it right away. It caught me off guard. There’s no excuses, it’s embarrassing. … I have missed something in preparing them for something I thought was a really important game for us. It was. I missed something along the way. I’m part of it. I’m embarrassed that we embarrassed our organization.”The Blue Jackets had not been shut out for nearly a year (a 5-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning last New Year’s Eve) and winger Cam Atkinson’s career-high points streak ended as 12 games, one short of tying the franchise record.The Canucks are feeling much better about their effort after a 6-1 road win on Sunday over the St. Louis Blues. They’ll be aiming for their third straight win against the Blue Jackets in the middle of a three-game road trip.Rookie sensation Elias Pettersson led the Canucks to their last win with a goal and four assists for his second five-point game of the year. He’s just the sixth rookie in the NHL expansion era with two or more games with five points or more.On Monday, Pettersson was named the first star of the week in the NHL after producing two goals and six assists in the last three games. He leads all rookies with 30 points (15 goals, 15 assists) in 26 games and has one more goal than teammate Bo Horvat.“I’m just trying to create chances and points will come when you play good,” Pettersson said. “That’s all I’m thinking of.”Vancouver’s Brock Boeser had a hat trick against the Blues and gave credit to his 20-year-old teammate.“He can make passes that most guys can’t,” Boeser said. “You’ve always got to be ready.”Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom is impressed with the Boeser-Pettersson duo.“They’ve been doing a great job,” he said. “They put up a lot of points and a lot of goals. … That’s what we need, and they’ve been rewarded. They create chances every game and that’s huge for us.” This is not Brayden Schenn’s first rodeo with a lot of things this season.It is his second time playing under Craig Berube as an interim coach and the third time his name has been prominent in trade speculation. For Schenn and the St. Louis Blues www.officialcanucks.com , those things are related.A bad start to the season cost coach Mike Yeo his job in November and started talk that just about anyone from Schenn to star winger Vladimir Tarasenko to young defenseman Colton Parayko could be dealt away. But over the past two month as interim coach, Berube has turned things around — so much so that the Blues could make a run at the playoffs and keep general manager Doug Armstrong from selling ahead of the Feb. 25 trade deadline.“Guys are playing hard right now and (Berube) obviously commands a lot when it comes to the work ethic side of the game,” Schenn said Monday in Washington. “We’ve had high expectations right from the beginning, we didn’t meet them, then there’s tons of rumors about everyone. That’s kind of how it goes when you’re not winning and you’re not meeting expectations.“Now we’re in a position — closer, anyways — to make a playoff push, and we feel like we can in this locker room. Now it’s up to us to try and save ourselves, each other, from getting traded and staying here together.”Berube has pulled the Blues together by getting them back to basics. They’ve gone 5-2-1 in their past eight games to move within four points of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference and can now think about the postseason.“This is such a good team here, and we’re starting to get back to our game,” leading scorer Ryan O’Reilly said. “We can get into the playoffs. We can make a difference.”After trading for O’Reilly and signing forwards David Perron, Tyler Bozak and Patrick Maroon last summer Vancouver Canucks T-Shirts Authentic , the Blues were expected to make the playoffs and contend for the Stanley Cup. Twelve losses in their first 19 games led to the coaching change, and Berube has instilled some badly needed consistency.“He’s one of those guys that wants you to make plays, but he demands a lot,” captain Alex Pietrangelo said. “He wants you to work. And we’re working right now. That’s what we’re doing. That’s how we’re winning hockey games.”Berube, who also was interim coach for Schenn and the Philadelphia Flyers in 2013-14, has helped the Blues win games by changing their mentality to become more of a north-south team. There was never a shortage of talent, but now the direction of the action is straight toward the net with the kind of direct style more suited to the group’s size.“We control the puck in the offensive zone a lot,” Berube said. “We shoot the puck and get to the net. That’s our game.”It helps that the Blues are getting stellar goaltending from rookie Jordan Binnington and veteran starter Jake Allen of late. Binnington is 3-1-0 with a 1.55 goals-against average and .937 save percentage in his first four NHL starts after getting called up at age 25 and being asked to steady the ship.“With a little bit of pressure comes opportunity,” Binnington said. “You try to do your best to feel confident and prepared for the moment, so you just work hard off the ice and on the ice in practice, and when the moment finally comes, hopefully you’re prepared. That’s kind of how I looked at it.”Blues skaters look at their rough start not as a case of subpar goaltending but disastrous play in front of the net. Schenn said it was “ugly” early on Vancouver Canucks Hoodies Authentic , and Pietrangelo said the team has done a better job cutting down on rush chances against, which has made life easier for the goalies.“We’re playing more of a 60-minute hockey game,” said Allen, who has a .910 save percentage this season under Berube (it was .879 under Yeo). “We were finding ways to shoot ourselves in the foot prior to that. We’d play 20 minutes of good hockey, 20 minutes of bad hockey, 20 minutes of mediocre hockey and sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But right we’re getting goals and we’re hunkering down, but at the same time we’re still finding a way to capitalize on opportunities.”More than anything, the Blues need to pile up the points to go from last place in the Central Division at the time of Yeo’s dismissal to the playoffs after missing by one point last season. Berube gets a lot of credit within the locker room for establishing a foundation of success.“He’s just brought some stability to the group,” defenseman Robert Bortuzzo said. “He’s definitely made an emphasis on character and compete. I think that’s something we all needed as a group and something we’re going to need night in and night out.”