Game six of the season against the 1-5-1 Dallas Stars — and the Jackets made it look easy. They were off to a fast start with the first goal scored by Zach Werenski, assisted by Gustav Nyquist. It was Werenski’s second goal of the season, and set the tone for some other unlikely stars to step up.
Zach Werenski became the third defenseman in @BlueJacketsNHL franchise history to score at least 40 goals, joining Rostislav Klesla (41) and David Savard (40). #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/n8ok3E2Snb
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) October 16, 2019
Ugh, we love an Alexander Wennberg moment! He scored the second Blue Jackets goal of the first period, bringing them up 2-0 against the frazzled Stars. I don’t want to jinx anything, so I’ll just say Wennberg’s offense looked really good tonight and I hope it continues to be so. So, Brian, to answer the below question: Yes.
Too soon to say Wennberg’s back?#CBJ
— Brian Hedger (@BrianHedger) October 16, 2019
Also worth noting is that Wennberg’s own father was interviewed during the game and said “[Alex] probably should have stuck with soccer.” Amazing.
In a night of defensemen scoring first goals, Miro Heiskanen popped one in for the Stars towards the end of the first, making it 2-1 as the period ended. Dallas outshot the Jackets 16-11, but Korpi was on top of his game.
In the second period, not much happened except a super cringe-worthy “Kiss Cam” situation on the jumbotron… like, literally, kiss a giant cut-out cardboard head of Cam Atkinson. However, the pizza song was not played the entire game, so I will let it slide.
I will own up and say that over the summer, I did suggest trading Sonny Milano to anyone who wanted him in exchange a bag full of his weight in hockey pucks. I FULLY rescind that statement, however, after witnessing the goal he scored in the third period. It was glorious. It was beautiful. It brought a tear to my eye. The look on Torts’ face after seeing that goal was priceless. Hang on, let me find the tweet —
A hotline is being established for overwhelmed fans:
📞1-800-THIS-IS-AWESOME pic.twitter.com/OeWR6ozU2b
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) October 17, 2019
Goals like this are why the SC Top Ten list was created.
Dallas scored with 2.6 seconds left in the game, which no one (a.k.a. me) even realized because we were still picking our jaws up off the floor from Milano’s between-the-legs shot. Dallas scoring at the end almost made Milano’s goal sweeter, considering it made it the game-winning goal.
This tweet sums everything up nicely:
You know things are going well when #CBJ get goals from Alex Wennberg and Sonny Milano
— Milan Jordan (@milanjordan) October 17, 2019
This game brought the Jackets back up to .500 for the season, and was an exciting win to follow their previous exciting win against the Hurricanes last Friday. I shan’t get my hopes up and expect the season to continue this way — if anything, what we’ve seen so far just shows us we’re in for a rollercoaster of a season. Buckle up!