The Columbus Blue Jackets unleashed their firepower early as their home dominance of the Montreal Canadiens continued in a ?? win on Monday night at Nationwide.
Montreal got on the board first with a fluke goal 34 seconds into the period, when Brendan Gallagher tipped home a puck that came from Jeff Petry along the boards passed Sergei Bobrovsky in a goal that kind of felt like this game was going to get out of hand.
But, the Jackets responded quickly when Nick Foligno dangled in the slot and walked his way to the goal, putting a shot on Charlie Lindgren that, after deflecting off a few skates and sticks, landed in the goal on an own-goal to tie the game at 1-1.
Seth Jones extended the lead twice in the opening period, each time on the power play, to give the Jackets a 3-1 lead at the first intermission: The first came from a feed by Cam Atkinson to set Jones up at the top of the blue line and the second goal wasn’t much different as Jones received the feed from Artemi Panarin, again at the blue line, and Jones had all the room in the world to work with as he launched another puck past Lindgren to make it 3-1.
The second period was a stellar possession effort by the Jackets, despite scoring just once (which is a weird thing to complain about, I know), a goal that came off a deflection and a follow through by Boone Jenner following a pass that was juuuuuuuuust out of his reach by Alexander Wennberg to put the Jackets up in front comfortably, 4-1.
Montreal got a goal back and cut the lead in half on a Jonathan Drouin breakaway goal, where he put some nifty moves on Bob, off a faceoff and it felt like it may have given Montreal a bit of life, but the Jackets weathered the storm for the remainder of the period, and played a very strong opening to the third period to put the game back on an even-keel, which in this case, favored CBJ.
The third period belonged to Montreal, who out shot CBJ 24-5 in the frame, but it was the Jackets who was able to light the lamp on an Ian Cole wrist shot from the point to make it a 5-2 game.
Bob totaled 38 saves while the Jackets went 2 for 3 on the power play.
Where in the world has this team been all season?