Things just aren't going right for the Blue Jackets.
On a night when the undermanned Blue Jackets went toe to toe with the reigning champions, they couldn't get any pucks past Sergei Bobrovsky, and even when they did, it was called back for DKM.
Then with just 30 seconds left, Kirill Marchenko, who was simply battling for a puck along the boards with a Panther, knocked the puck out of play, drawing a delay of game penalty. The Cats went on the power play going into the overtime period, where Aleksander Barkov wasted no time putting the game-winner past Elvis Merzļikins to win it. I'm not sure Merzļikins even saw it due to a friendly screen by one of his own defensemen.
Don't worry, they can't go the rest of the season without scoring, can they?
Dean Evason said after the game, "We're not happy in that dressing room. There's no like, 'Oh, good, we played great against the Stanley Cup champions.' We're pissed. But did we do the right things to obviously get a point? Did we catch a bad break trying to do the right thing? Yeah. So we're real positive -- after we're pissed off."
Final Stats
Player Stats
- Elvis Merzļikins made 27 saves on 28 shots.
- Zach Werenski had 6 shots to lead the team.
- Mathieu Olivier had 8 hits.
Team Stats
- The Jackets power play went 0/2 on the night.
- The Columbus PK stopped 1 of 2 Panther power plays.
- Columbus won 44.4% of the faceoffs.
What's Next: The Blue Jackets travel to Pittsburgh on Friday to play the Penguins.
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