Columbus was able to salvage an all-important point in the loss for the standings.
Justin Danforth (4) and Ivan Provorov (6-SHG) scored the only goals for Columbus, and Elvis Merzļikins made some monster saves to keep the CBJ in the game, but it wasn't enough as the Hockey Club from Utah beat the Jackets 3-2 in overtime.
This game probably shouldn't have even been close. Utah dominated the underlying stats by a wide margin. See the picture below courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com. The Jackets should've been blown out of this game.
Somehow the feisty Jackets were able to make this a game after giving up two second-period goals. When Ivan Provorov blew the roof off of NWA very late in the second period to tie the game at two, many thought that the Jackets had finally strangled the game away from Utah. But when both teams would fail to score in the third, they would head to overtime.
Elvis Merzļikins did everything he could to stop a Dylan Guenther breakaway, but after collecting his own rebound, he would bury the game-winner in what would be his second OT game-winner in as many games.
HC Dean Evason said after the game: "That's a good point tonight. Of course, we want two. It's great that we can put this in the memory bank and go, 'OK, maybe we don't have some people, maybe we don't have our best stuff, but we're able to play the way that we know how to play in order to give ourselves a chance.'"
Dylan Guenther on his overtime winner: "I saw they were offside, so once I saw (that) Ingy got it, I kind of figured he was going to shoot it. I didn't really even see it. I just started skating and it landed on my stick."
Final Stats
Player Stats
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Team Stats
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What's Next: The Jackets play the New York Rangers at home on Saturday in what is the last game before the Four Nations Faceoff break.
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