The highlight of the night was former Blue Jacket Cam Atkinson signing a one-day contract to retire as a member of the Union Blue, followed by taking one last lap in uniform around the Nationwide Arena ice during the pregame.
The game that followed was…ooof.
First Period
Colorado largely controlled play for the first period, but weren’t able to get anything past Elvis Merzlikins. The Jackets got the first power play and got some decent looks, but the period ended scoreless.
Second Period
The middle frame was a lot more eventful. The reworked top line led the scoring. Sean Monahan battled to get the puck into the offensive zone, and Kirill Marchenko circled the puck behind the net. From there he found Ivan Provorov in the left circle for the top shelf one-timer. Marchenko is the best Blue Jacket of the season and frankly no one else is even close.
In the middle of the period, Colorado tilted the ice again and proceeded to score three unanswered goals. First up was Cale Makar with a shot that found its way through traffic somehow.
Barely over a minute later, the Avs had possession again and Brent Burns (yes, he’s still playing!) fired from the blue line and Brock Nelson deflected it from the slot.
The Jackets finally put together a great passing sequence from Adam Fantilli, Cole Sillinger, and Dmitri Voronkov that should have resulted in a goal. Instead, the ref immediately waved it off (and Toronto agreed) because Voronkov had caught the puck against his chest before it went into the net. The puck was directed off his chest rather than from his hand, but I get that it was too close to overturn the call on the ice. Still a great play, but unfortunately the Jackets didn’t create enough opportunities like that one.
Finally, with just four seconds left in the period, the Avs got one more deflected shot from long range. Sam Malinski’s shot was deflected by Valeri Nichushkin.
Third Period
Despite being stuck on the fourth line, Yegor Chinakhov showed good hustle on the attack and drew a penalty. Unfortunately the Jackets generated only two shot attempts (one missed, one on goal).
Another extended offensive zone shift in the middle of the period ended with a holding penalty on Voronkov. Gotta stop taking OZ penalties!
Elvis was pulled with 3:31 left and the Jackets once again appeared to have scored, but again it was waved off immediately for a hand pass. Cole Sillinger knocked the puck down and it was tapped in by Damon Severson. You can catch the puck and drop it to your own stick, but you can’t bat it down and have a teammate touch it first.
Nichushkin recorded his second goal of the night with an empty-netter with 1:53 left and that was all she wrote.
Final Thoughts
Everything about the Atkinson retirement today was first class by the CBJ organization. Yes, I teared up when I saw Atkinson point to the Johnny Gaudreau banner.
Elvis is now averaging 3.5 goals allowed over his two start, but once again it doesn’t feel like it was his fault. All were at 5v5, but each was a deflection and/or through traffic. Per Moneypuck, he saved 1.289 goals above expected. He made some huge saves throughout the night. He wasn’t great but he gave the team enough to win.
The Jackets, meanwhile, had 3.04 expected goals and it’s not like they were facing a Vezina contender in Scott Wedgewood. Gotta get more shots on net, and more shots from high danger areas.
Also need to be better with the puck. The stats say 22 giveaways and that feels generous.
Up Next
The homestand wraps up with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday at 7.