The Jackets played one of their slowest, sloppiest games of the year this evening, but managed to overcome it and defeated the visiting Carolina Hurricanes 3-2.
The Jackets opened the scoring with Markus Hannikainen scoring his first career NHL goal, and added a terrific celebration to cap it off. You could see the smile on his face from space.
The home team would add another one about ten minutes later. Dalton Prout, who was in the lineup with Scott Harrington on the third pair, gathered the puck in the defensive zone, and fed it up-ice to a streaking Scott Hartnell. Hartnell wound up just inside the ‘Canes blueline and beat Michael Leighton with a slow slapper.
The second period sucked for the Jackets. It was just awful. They didn’t get their first shot on-net until the 16:18 mark of the period. Sebastian Aho scored for Carolina on the powerplay, and Justin Faulk tied the game at the 15:27 mark.
The third period wasn’t much better for Columbus, until Sam Gagner undressed a Carolina defender at their blueline, feeding a cross-ice pass to Scott Hartnell who wired the puck into the net. The goal would end up as the game-winner.
Two points is two points, but I’m sure Torts will have plenty of feedback for the lads after this one.