The Columbus Blue Jackets began another long road trip tonight, and played their final game of the season in the Pacific Time Zone. Cole Sillinger returned after missing the last three games with injury, which means the merciful end of the 11/7 arrangement.
First Period
It was all Vegas to start the game, and with this Tomas Hertl goal it appeared they had a more goals to come.
Luckily the Blue Jackets were able to settle things down, and then managed to tie it up late in the period with a gritty goal from the top line.
Second and Third Periods
Those goals tied Columbus and Vegas with Washington for the season lead in 5v5 goals (115 each). You would think that would mean more goals to come, yeah? Wrong. It was a free-flowing, back-and-forth game but both defenses did well to keep the opponents out of the dirty areas, while goalies Ilya Samsonov and Elvis Merzlikins cleaned up whatever got through.
Vegas came dangerously close to taking the lead back late in the second period, but an Ivan Barbashev rebound goal was quickly waved off due to Jack Eichel colliding with Elvis in the crease after his own shot attempt.
Ivan Provorov drew boos from the home crowd while holding the puck behind the net for most of the final 30 seconds, but he wasn’t going to risk blowing a chance to secure a road point.
Overtime
The Jackets started with Fantilli, Marchenko, and Werenski, but after earning an offensive zone faceoff, Dean Evason opted to insert Sillinger and Kent Johnson with Werenski. They lost that faceoff, but back in their own end Johnson made a great defensive play to pick Alex Pietrangelo’s pocket. KJ then sped down the ice on a breakaway and tried his go-to 5-hole move against Samsonov. The Vegas goalie made that save, and on Werenski’s rebound attempt as well. Third time was the charm as Sillinger followed the play and buried the loose puck for the winner.
Final Thoughts
Elvis had another great performance in Vegas (fitting, right?) but credit to the entire team for their defensive effort tonight. Vegas had just 2.28 expected goals at 5v5.
Luca Del Bel Belluz was still noticeable tonight despite moving down to the third line with Mathieu Olivier and Zach Aston-Reese. I thought he was invisible on that line earlier this month. You can see his more confident and comfortable competing at this level.
After winning just 4 games on the road in the first three months of the season, the Jackets have now won that many just in the month of January. That’s quite a turnaround.
Up Next
The Blue Jackets make their first trip to Salt Lake City on Friday night to complete this back-to-back. Puck drops at 9 PM EST.