Voronkov notches three points as Blue Jackets win preseason opener

The Blue Jackets opened the 2025 preseason with a 4-1 victory against St. Louis on Sunday evening at Nationwide Arena.

Game in a Paragraph

Columbus got the preseason off to a solid start, never trailing on the way to the victory. After a scoreless first, the Blue Jackets built a 2-1 advantage in the second and then put the game away with a pair of goals in the final three minutes.

CBJ Standouts

• Dmitri Voronkov led the charge with a goal and two assists for a three-point night.
• Luca Del Bel Belluz added a goal and an assist and was plus-3.
• Brendan Gaunce and Mathieu Olivier also scored goals.
• Ivan Fedotov stopped 14 of 15 shots against in goal, while Evan Gardner turned aside all six shots he faced.

Quote of the Game

Head coach Dean Evason: “We got a lot of clips (to show the team). Things were a little sloppy at times. We had some turnovers. We already clipped a pile. You still have to play the right way, but for the most part, we did a lot of really good things structurally, blocked a lot of shots.”

How It Happened

In a first period that featured just nine combined shots on goal – six for the Blues, three for Columbus – neither team was able to get on the board, though the Blue Jackets did have 12 shots blocked. The closest either team came to getting on the board came when Mikael Pyyhtia fired the puck off a St. Louis turnover forced by CBJ defenseman Dysin Mayo, but his shot hit the crossbar behind Blues goalie Joel Hofer.

Columbus set off the cannon just 2:41 into the second moments after a penalty to Voronkov ended. The puck came to Voronkov as he exited the box, and he collected and fed Gaunce in on a 2-on-0 with Del Bel Belluz, with Gaunce choosing the shot and putting it between Hofer’s legs. The Blue Jackets then made it 2-0 with 4:18 left in the second as Del Bel Belluz collected a blocked shot in the slot and fired past Hofer. St. Louis quickly made it a one-goal game again, though, with 3:02 left when Nikita Alexandrov tipped Justin Carbonneau’s shot past Fedotov, who earlier made a standout glove save on Alexandre Texier.

Both goaltenders were changed in the third, with Gardner coming in for Columbus and Vadim Zherenko getting the St. Louis cage. There weren’t a lot of chances either way in the final period, though Gardner made an impressive glove snag of a shot by Adam Jiricek with around four minutes to go. Finally, with St. Louis pushing, Voronkov scored on a 2-on-1 counterattack with 2:29 to go and Olivier added an empty-net goal with 23.0 seconds left

Notable

Jake Christiansen played a team-high 23:54 and finished an assist, eight shot attempts and a plus-3 rating. ... Christiansen’s defensive partner, Brendan Smith, also finished plus-3 and dropped the gloves with St. Louis heavyweight Sam Bitten in the first period. ... Defenseman Daemon Hunt led the team with four shot blocks while James Malatesta led the way with eight hits. ... In a relatively tight game, the Blue Jackets finished with a 22-21 edge in shots on goal and 52-46 advantage in shot attempts.

Roster Report

Here is the roster the Blue Jackets used for the contest. It featured 13 players who saw NHL action a season ago, including nine with Columbus.

Up Next

The Blue Jackets are right back at it Monday night, playing preseason game No. 2 against visiting Buffalo at 7 p.m. at Nationwide Arena.