Columbus Blue Jackets Impressive in Last Three Games
The Columbus Blue Jackets have been impressive in their last three games. Winning all three by a margin of 17-2. This may be skewed by their 10-0 rout of Montreal, but that in its own right is very impressive.
After a tough road loss to the San Jose Sharks, the Columbus Blue Jackets bounced back with a very impressive win against the Anaheim Ducks on the road shutting them out 4-0 on the road. Brandon Saad and Sam Gagner each scored a pair of goals in the first period and Sergei Bobrovsky took it from their stopping all 35 of the Ducks shots.
The Next game was a thriller back on home ice with the Blue Jackets trailing the stars with under a minute left, but life was given to the Blue Jackets when Stars defenseman, Johnny Oduya took a slashing penalty.
The Blue Jackets pulled Bobrovsky and capitalized with Sam Gagner scoring with a little over 15 seconds to go. This made the fans at Nationwide go crazy and to top it off Seth Jones blew the roof of the building going bar down to win the game 46 seconds into overtime.
The last of the three was a shocker. The Montreal Canadiens came into Columbus not 9-0-1, but the Blue Jackets handed them their first regulation loss in outstanding fashion. The Blue Jackets set the cannon off for a club record 10 goals.
Lukas Sedlak and Ryan Murray were the only Jackets skaters to not tally a point in the game. On top of that 8 Blue Jackets had multiple points with Alexander Wennberg leading the team with 4 assists.
Special Teams Leading the Way
The Blue Jackets powerplay and penalty-kill are leading the way for the Blue Jackets this season. The Blue Jackets lead the NHL in powerplay percentage scoring on 44% of their opportunities. This success showed with them tallying 4 goals against the Canadiens.
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Along with the powerplay the team’s penalty-kill ranks third in the NHL, with the team killing off 89.3 of their penalties. Success on special teams can drive a team to success and with such success on each the Blue Jackets are able to play a physical game knowing they can rely on their kill and that when their opportunity comes they can make the opponent pay.
Three Stars of the Last Three Games
Three Blue Jackets stood out in the last three games amongst others. The first star has to be Sergei Bobrovsky. Bobrovsky has posted two shut outs in the last three games. He has started all 9 of the Blue Jackets games getting stronger each game. In each of the last three games, he has stopped at least thirty shots. If Bobrovsky can keep up the hot play, the ceiling for the Jackets rises.
Along with Bobrovsky, Sam Gagner has been impressive for the Blue Jackets. Gagner has tallied 4 points in the last three games. Gagner scored the two in the first period against the Ducks which were back breakers, and he came up clutch against the Stars. Gagner was healthy scratched earlier in the season but rebounded like a veteran.
Lastly, Nick Foligno has tallied 7 points in the last three games. Foligno assisted on three of the four goals scored in Anaheim. He started the Blue Jackets scoring against the stars and added three points against the Canadiens. Foligno struggled last year, so it is great to see the captain putting up big numbers to start the season.