Blue Jackets defy built-in excuses, finish strong again to beat Senators
After a travel nightmare and missing a veteran center, the Blue Jackets stepped up in the third period for the third straight game.
Maybe routine is overrated. Maybe the Columbus Blue Jackets should travel day-of-game more often.
The Blue Jackets, with multiple ready-made excuses for a lousy night against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre, instead turned in one of their most impressive outings in a 4-1 win before a sellout crowd of 17,902.
Boone Jenner, Damon Severson, Denton Mateychuk and Kirill Marchenko each scored goals; Charlie Coyle and Cole Sillinger each had two assists; and goaltender Jet Greaves — starting both ends of a back-to-back — stopped 27 of 28 shots.
Not bad for a team that spent Sunday night and most of Monday wondering when — or if — it’d be able to get out of Columbus due to a combination of mechanical woes and weather issues with its charter airline carrier.
The Blue Jackets, who were supposed to leave Sunday after a win over the New York Islanders, didn’t take off until 2:45 p.m. on Monday. They landed in Ottawa around 4 p.m., reached Canadian Tire Centre around 5 p.m. and started getting ready. Because of the time crunch, the NHL pushed the start of the game back a half-hour to 7:30 p.m.
“(The tough part) was just the uncertainty of not knowing when you’re leaving,” Severson told FanDuel Sports Network after the game. “There were a bunch of different times from (Sunday night), to this morning. It just kept getting pushed back. But we ended up making it here on time. The boys had lots of time to warm up, so it’s always sweeter when you can have some adversity like that and fight through it and come together as a team, get a big win on the road and then head back home.”
It marked the first time all season the Blue Jackets have won three consecutive games in regulation, and the third straight game in which the Blue Jackets were the better team in the third period.
These last three wins, strangely enough, have all been achieved without the Blue Jackets’ top player, defenseman Zach Werenski (lower-body injury). On Monday, center Sean Monahan (undisclosed) left early in warmups and was not able to play.
“The circumstances coming in, you know, they weren’t really in our favor,” said Mateychuk, who played 27:26 in Werenski’s absence. “We didn’t let that be an excuse. We came and we played our game for 60 minutes, and we got the two points.”
The Blue Jackets scored the all-important first goal at 15:58 of the first period, when Sillinger tracked down a puck in the Senators’ zone and fed Jenner, who was camped in front of Ottawa goaltender Leevi Meriläinen. Jenner’s 399th career point was a classic Jenner goal, scored from close range to make it 1-0 Blue Jackets.
Severson pushed the lead to 2-0 with a slapper off the rush early in the second, but the Senators pushed back for the rest of the period, cutting the lead to 2-1 on a Jake Sanderson goal at 8:16.
That score stood until the third period, which might have been a problem for the Blue Jackets a week ago. Suddenly, however, they’ve turned in three straight commanding performances in the third period.