Morning Musings: Roslovic's big night leads CBJ to another victory

In a wild back-and-forth game Sunday night in Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets kept their composure long enough to pick up a 6-5 win in overtime over Los Angeles on Johnny Gaudreau's game winner. It was a night for the offenses, with Jack Roslovic leading the way with the first four-point game of the season for the Blue Jackets. Gaudreau and Patrik Laine each added 1-2-3 lines and Kirill Marchenko tallied his first NHL goal.

Game In Five Minutes

Three Topics

1. Columbus went through one of the most difficult experiences a team can go through in the NHL on Wednesday night, falling into a historic 6-0 first-period hole on the way to a 9-4 loss to Buffalo.
   Since then, the Blue Jackets have responded, and in two different ways. Columbus played one of its better defensive games of the season Friday night in a 3-1 victory over Calgary, then the Blue Jackets and Kings played last night's wild 11-goal affair.
   It was a contest befitting the No. 23-ranked defense (Los Angeles) in the NHL and the No. 31-ranked D (Columbus), but the Jackets stuck with it long enough to get the win.
   Head coach Brad Larsen felt his team of late had been doing a better job of handling the ebbs and flows of games, and while there clearly remains work to do, the Jackets emerged on top.
   "We've done such a better job of minimizing that stuff," he said. "We outscored it. We got some goals at the end (of the second) that got a little bit of momentum back, but then we were on our heels in the third. So it's great. We found a way to score again, and you get six, you hope you're winning the game with six goals."
   After all, there's no reason to apologize for a win in the NHL.
   "Any way you can win a game, you gotta figure out a way to get it done, if you have to score six goals or if you score one and keep the rest out," Roslovic said. "You look at the Calgary game, we didn't give up anything really until the end. Tonight was a different story, but we still figured out a way to win."
   2. Here's the thing -- if you're going to lose a pair of two-goal leads, you have to have a pair of two-goal leads.
   The Blue Jackets' big guns brought the offense on this night, but no one had a bigger night than Jack Roslovic. The Central Ohio center has been turning around a slow start production-wise to the season, posting four assists in five games before last night then earning his second four-night game as a Blue Jacket against the Kings.
   Is it a coincidence that Roslovic's strong play is coinciding with being placed on a line with longtime teammate Laine as well as Yegor Chinakhov?
   "They're two shooters, and I'd like to have a little bit more of their mind-set and shoot a little bit more," Roslovic said. "But it's nice to be able to know you can pass it out and there's skilled players and they have good shots."
   We'll have more on the historic nature of Roslovic's night below, but here's a place to start -- he's the first CBJ player ever to have a four-point night that included a shorthanded goal.

"It's fun to play with him," Laine said. "Obviously he was feeling it tonight. It feels like he's been getting his confidence back, which is a good thing for us and obviously his linemates. It's just fun to watch. He's been struggling this year, but he's working on it and it's great to see it paying off."
3. Yet the first goal is one that will be remembered for a long time, at least in the Marchenko family. The Blue Jackets' second-round pick in the 2018 draft debuted Tuesday vs. Pittsburgh and notched his first NHL tally against the Kings.
Marchenko scored plenty of goals in the KHL in recent years and will probably finish his NHL career with a pretty good account, but you'll always remember your first.
It came in the opening period when Kent Johnson intercepted an LA clearing attempt, got close enough to goalie Jonathan Quick to draw over the netminder and then -- without looking, it appeared -- he found Marchenko on the back side of the play for an easy finish.
"I am very excited," said Marchenko, who got the team's Kepi hat postgame. "It's a great goal, but it's not my work, it's the work of KJ. Very good pass for me. I just had to shoot it in the net."

After he had returned to the bench for the next stoppage in play, Marchenko was shown on the Nationwide Arena scoreboard beaming on the bench as fans gave him a round of applause.
"It's a good moment for me," he said. "I will remember this moment because it is the first goal. And it was on camera. Just smile and more fans. I really like to score my first goal in a home game because it's our fans. It's great."

Quote Of The Game

Larsen after officials undertook a lengthy review of Gaudreau's game-winning goal: "I was just happy we were coming down the tunnel, that's all."

Nerd Stuff

• Roslovic became the ninth CBJ player to score both a power-play and shorthanded goal in a game, the last being Kristian Huselius on Nov. 19, 2009. Rick Nash and Tyler Wright each did it twice, while Sergei Fedorov, Andrew Cassels and Geoff Sanderson also accomplished the feat.
• This was the 49th time a CBJ player notched four points in a game. Other players to have multiple four-night games: Cam Atkinson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Fedorov, Scott Hartnell, Huselius, Espen Knutsen, Rick Nash, Artemi Panarin, Mike Sillinger, R.J. Umberger, Alexander Wennberg, Nikolai Zherdev.
• Gaudreau recorded his 20th assist in his 27th game with the Blue Jackets. Only Cassels (26 games played in 2002-03) recorded 20 assists in fewer games from the start of his tenure with the club.
• With his power-play goal in the first period, Jenner now has a 9-8-17 line in the last 17 games.
• Laine, meanwhile, has scored six times in six games since returning from injury and has three multipoint games in that span.
• Gaudreau keeps producing at an impressive pace, posting a 4-12-16 line in the last 10 games and a 5-17-22 pace in the last 14.
• Vladislav Gavrikov tallied his first multi-assist and third multipoint effort of the season with two assists to give him 0-5-5 in his last seven games.
• Columbus finished 2-for-3 on the power play. The Blue Jackets have multiple power-play goals in three of the last 10 games.
• Roslovic is now three helpers from 100 career assists.
• Marchenko is the 22nd player to score this year for Columbus, tied for the most in the NHL.
• Gaudreau and Jenner each became the first CBJ players to 10 goals on the season.

Being Social

Hope you had a great time in Columbus, Desmond!

The new "pose with a pro" spots in Nationwide are pretty cool.

Congrats!

The fans are excited for Kirill.