It was the second OT winner for Fantilli this season and in his career, and you could say there was a little poetic justice that he did it by racing past the player drafted ahead of him by the team that could have had him. But Fantilli downplayed that connection, happy first and foremost that he had put two critical points on the board for the Blue Jackets.
“Like obviously you know about it, but I’m not coming into this game going this is that much bigger,” Fantilli said. “This is a big game for me because of where our team is at in the standings, not because some team passed on me two years ago. That doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m here to win with this franchise. I’m grateful to be here, I want to be here, and I want to win here. Tonight was a great step, so keep going.”
As for the fact that Fantilli took matters into his own hands and got the winner while his teammates were changing, no one on his side seemed to mind. Head coach Dean Evason appreciated both the derring-do as well as the hockey sense behind the play of using the defenseman as a screen, while his summer workout partner Zach Werenski knew that Fantilli had it in him.
“I actually think he can probably do that more in games,” Werenski said. “He’s such a big body with so much speed, and he has such a great shot and great release. He can just beat goalies. A lot of guys can’t do that. I feel like he’s a special player that way, and I think once he really figures out that he can just shoot pucks past goalies, he’s going to score a lot more goals. I think that’s a great goal in overtime, and a big moment for our group too. He stepped up big time there.”
2. It wasn’t the prettiest win, but the Blue Jackets will take it.
The victory snapped a five-game losing skid for Columbus – the last four in regulation – and some familiar problems dogged the Blue Jackets, who never quite seem to make things easy.
After taking a 3-1 lead with a pair of tallies 19 seconds apart early in the second, the Blue Jackets yet again gave up a response goal shortly thereafter. And in a familiar twist, that 3-2 third-period lead disappeared thanks to Jackson LaCombe’s improbable shot off the mask of CBJ goalie Jet Greaves from below the goal line with 3:16 to go.
But in the end, it was two points, and while the game wasn’t perfect, the Blue Jackets certainly played well enough to earn them – in contrast to some other contests this season where a good effort wasn't enough to get the win.
“It’s nice to get rewarded for working hard,” Evason said. “You can talk until you’re blue in the face about playing right and not getting rewarded, but at the end of the night, it still sucks (to lose). To get two points tonight did not suck.”
The Blue Jackets finished the night four points behind the Eastern Conference’s final wild card spot, and though they still have work to do to pass the jumbled mess of teams ahead of them, they needed a victory to get back on track.
“It felt big,” said captain Boone Jenner, who had a goal and an assist. “Obviously we need to get some points in the bank here before the break and knew how much was at stake here in these games, so I thought it was a resilient win. We just stuck with it even when they get that one in the third. It’s something to build off, and there’s another big one Thursday. So something to build off tonight.”
3. The Blue Jackets penalty kill stepped up when it had to – but that’s usually how it goes against Anaheim.
With apologies to Werenski – who had two goals in his 600th NHL game – we have to shout out the CBJ penalty kill here with our third bullet point.
Two very odd streaks were at play going into Tuesday night’s game against the Ducks. First, the Blue Jackets had lost six in a row in Nationwide Arena against Anaheim, a run that dated back to Dec. 1, 2017.
Yet the Ducks had achieved that streak without the benefit of a power-play goal. In fact, Anaheim entered the game having gone 42 consecutive power plays without scoring against the Blue Jackets, dating back to Feb. 11, 2016.
Columbus was able to end the home losing streak on Tuesday night, and one of the big reasons why was the penalty kill streak remained intact. Anaheim had four power plays in the game yet finished scoreless on the man advantage.
“It was huge,” Jenner said. “We killed four off. I didn’t think we gave them much. Jet made some huge stops, but I think everyone was dialed into the details on the penalty kill, doing the right things and we got the results. It gave us some juice tonight, so that’s what we need from it.”
Perhaps even more impressive was the fact the Ducks rarely threatened on the power play. Their best chance came early in the second period when Mikael Granlund fired from the right circle, but Greaves moved from right to left and extended his pad to deny the Anaheim forward.
The Ducks finished with eight shots on goal on the four chances, but just two were considered high-danger chances by Natural Stat Trick.
“Obviously we had four in a row, and that’s tough,” Evason said. “It’s a lot of time on the guys and the people that are killing, but the guys really beared down tonight, and obviously our best penalty killer is the goaltender and he was.”
