diff --git a/jetty-core/jetty-client/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/client/transport/HttpConnection.java b/jetty-core/jetty-client/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/client/transport/HttpConnection.java
index 17dee5cab017..38723867bb2e 100644
--- a/jetty-core/jetty-client/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/client/transport/HttpConnection.java
+++ b/jetty-core/jetty-client/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/client/transport/HttpConnection.java
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 import org.eclipse.jetty.io.CyclicTimeouts;
 import org.eclipse.jetty.util.Attachable;
 import org.eclipse.jetty.util.NanoTime;
+import org.eclipse.jetty.util.StringUtil;
 import org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.AutoLock;
 import org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.Scheduler;
 import org.slf4j.Logger;
@@ -145,7 +146,7 @@ protected void normalizeRequest(HttpRequest request)
 
         // Make sure the path is there
         String path = request.getPath();
-        if (path.trim().isEmpty())
+        if (StringUtil.isBlank(path))
         {
             path = "/";
             request.path(path);
diff --git a/jetty-core/jetty-util/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/util/StringUtil.java b/jetty-core/jetty-util/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/util/StringUtil.java
index 7d30336279e4..393500f4001c 100644
--- a/jetty-core/jetty-util/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/util/StringUtil.java
+++ b/jetty-core/jetty-util/src/main/java/org/eclipse/jetty/util/StringUtil.java
@@ -657,21 +657,7 @@ public static int indexOfControlChars(String str)
      */
     public static boolean isBlank(String str)
     {
-        if (str == null)
-        {
-            return true;
-        }
-        int len = str.length();
-        for (int i = 0; i < len; i++)
-        {
-            if (!Character.isWhitespace(str.codePointAt(i)))
-            {
-                // found a non-whitespace, we can stop searching  now
-                return false;
-            }
-        }
-        // only whitespace
-        return true;
+        return str == null || str.isBlank();
     }
 
     /**
@@ -727,21 +713,7 @@ public static int getLength(String s)
      */
     public static boolean isNotBlank(String str)
     {
-        if (str == null)
-        {
-            return false;
-        }
-        int len = str.length();
-        for (int i = 0; i < len; i++)
-        {
-            if (!Character.isWhitespace(str.codePointAt(i)))
-            {
-                // found a non-whitespace, we can stop searching  now
-                return true;
-            }
-        }
-        // only whitespace
-        return false;
+        return !isBlank(str);
     }
 
     public static boolean isHex(String str, int offset, int length)