Columbus Blue Jackets Bounce Back in 2-1 Victory

The Columbus Blue Jackets showed what so many were looking for. The ability to bounce back and come from behind for a regulation victory.

After two embarrassing performances, the Columbus Blue Jackets show us that they can not only beat good teams, but do so in come back fashion on the road. The CBJ end up victorious over the Dallas Stars by a final of 2-1.

If you didn’t tune in until the third period you didn’t miss any scoring. But you did miss the Jackets playing an ideal style of play for a team that is missing so much offensively and is facing a hot team on the road.

Dallas had won four of their last five including wins over St. Louis and Nashville. They were in the middle of a six game home stand and seemingly rolling. The Jackets though played a grinding, chippy, shutdown game allowing only seven shots in each the first and second periods respectively. The style of play and frequent stoppage in play that the Columbus Blue Jackets forced led to the many stars on Dallas to not get into a rhythm.

Skip Ahead to the Final Stanza

Much like an NBA game, you could have skipped ahead to the final period on this one. The game was scoreless until early in the third Dallas got on the board with Devin Shore goal and all in Jackets land collectively groaned “Here we go again”. The Jackets had yet to manufacture many scoring opportunities and there wasn’t a lot of hope that this team could score twice in 19 minutes.

Then enters our Danish hero. No, not a delicious, flaky pastry covered in sugar you use to kickstart your morning, but Oliver Bjorkstrand.

In a season that hasn’t seen much of his patented shot from the right wing circle, Jackets fans got plenty of it tonight. Just three minutes after the Shore goal, the Jackets stingy defense produced a turnover that led to a breakout for Bjork. He raced up the right hand side and snipped one over Ben Bishop‘s right shoulder to even the game up.

Just one minute later Bjork ended up with the puck on his stick in a very similar situation. This time he took the puck lower into the zone and somehow snipped another beauty, this one over Bishop’s left shoulder and buried it top shelf. The goal was incredible and will undoubtedly be played in every hockey rink in Denmark for the foreseeable future.

The Jackets held on to win 2-1 deep in the heart of Texas. Although Bjorkstrand’s beautiful goals grabbed the attention, the defense deserves a ton of credit. For the first time in a long time both David Savard and Jack Johnson looked above average. They weren’t complete liabilities on the back end and that created a scenario where the Jackets were still competitive heading into the third period. The splitting of the two seems to be paying off.

Related Story: Johnson and Savard Finally Split

Matt Calvert and Lukas Sedlak also had stellar games defensively, as did Bjorkstrand. The entire third line was great top to bottom in all facets of the game.

Game Notes

• Sergei Bobrovsky earned his 200th NHL win.
• Lukas Sedlak had two points as he assisted on both goals tonight. He also was a clear nuisance in the side of the Stars and drew the only penalty of the game as Tyler Seguin hooked Sedlak in the first period.
• David Savard took a puck off the ear as he blocked a shot in the second period. He was bleeding but was stitched up and played the third period.
• Markus Nutivaara played in his 100th NHL game.

The Jackets did what so many of us were looking for them to do in bouncing back and taking home two points. The Jackets will look to keep the momentum rolling on Thursday as they head north to Colorado to face the Avs.