Columbus Blue Jackets Win Game One in Overtime Thriller

The Columbus Blue Jackets steal game one in D.C. as they comeback to win in overtime.

Hopefully by now your heart rate is back down to a normal level. Overtime hockey tends spike the beats per minute. The Columbus Blue Jackets found a way not only to force overtime but win the game after a terrible first period of hockey. The Jackets 4-3 overtime win gives them the early edge in the series by stealing a game on the road.

The period was riddled with power play opportunities for the Washington Capitals. Nick Foligno and Ian Cole both were assessed minor penalties. The Jackets were successful in killing both of those off and they played better than the Caps at full strength. But late in the first Josh Anderson “left his feet” and laid a huge check on Michal Kempny in the corner.

This video shows it best. Penalty, yes. Major and ejection? Absolutely not. But that is what the sterling NHL referees called so the seventh best power play in the NHL now had five minutes with a man advantage.

Columbus Blue Jackets

The Capitals of course took advantage. They scored two goals within 30 seconds of each other and took a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission. Both goal were scored by Evgeny Kuznetsov and it appeared the Caps were going to roll the Jackets. They still had close to three minutes of power play time to open the second period as well.

But the Jackets came out strong and killed the penalty. Sergei Bobrovksy made some great saves and the CBJ survived.

Only two minutes after the power play was killed off, the Columbus Blue Jackets got on the board. Boone Jenner made a great cross ice pass to Alexander Wennberg who pocketed the goal to cut the deficit in half.

The rest of the period was controlled by the CBJ except for another minor penalty the Jackets took. They killed off the two minute hooking on Artemi Panarin and headed into the third period only down one.

Third Period

One minute into the third period Tom Wilson laid a dirty hit on Alexander Wennberg in the corner. Very similar to Josh Anderson’s hit earlier except Wennberg was taken out by his head and Anderson got a body on Kempny. Take a look.

Wennberg was unable to return to the game as he suffered an “upper body” injury according to the team. That hit on Wennberg had concussion written all over it and you have to wonder about his status for game two.

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Tom Wilson has been suspended before for hits like this, as recently as this preseason. The play will be reviewed by NHL Player Safety.

The Columbus Blue Jackets were able capitalize though and scored seconds into the power play. A silky smooth pass from rookie Pierre-Luc Dubois found Thomas Vanek right in front of the net where he potted the game tying goal.

Four minutes later after a defensive lapse that ended up with a double team on Jakub Vrana, Devante Smith-Pelly burried his first playoff goal after being left open. The Caps regained the lead with 15 minutes left and the momentum was back in their corner.

The Jackets continued the fight and had good scoring chances throughout the third but none better than with less than five minutes remaining. Andre Burakovsky tripped Seth Jones in the Jackets end leading to the Jackets fourth power play of the night. With the man advantage, Cam Atkinson made an incredible play to keep the puck in at the blue line from his knees. Cam dished the puck to Panarin who made another incredible cross ice pass to an open Seth Jones who beat Grubauer for the game tying goal.

It was the second power play goal on four attempts for the Columbus Blue Jackets who, after a horrendous start to the year, have turned their power play into a major weapon.

Overtime

The most gut wrenching event in sports is overtime playoff hockey and Columbus Blue Jackets fans were exposed to it in the first game of the series. A 3-3 tie led the two squads to overtime where it didn’t take long for the Breadman to deliver.

On what will go down as one of the best goals of the postseason, Artemi Panarin beat the Capitals singlehandedly. Panarin took the puck down the left hand side, skated past Dmitry Orlov and Jakub Jarebek and flicked an incredible shot into the top right corner of the goal to win the game.

The game winning goal came five minutes into overtime and awakened all of the Caps playoff ghost. The Jackets will ride this high from game one and look to take full control on Sunday by taking two on the road.