Quote of the Night
Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella: "I thought we played a good game. We havne't gotten rewarded, but we've played three good hockey games here. We just have to keep our wits about ourselves here and keep on playing."
CBJ Notables
Quick Recap
It was a tight-checked, physical contest between the Jackets and an Anaheim team missing Richard Rakell, Cam Fowler and Corey Perry, with not a ton of scoring chances either way throughout.
"That's what you get with Anaheim," forward Boone Jenner said. "They're a big, strong team and they check well. We knew it was going to be a night when there's lots of battles and physical play. I thought we did a lot of good things. I thought we were playing hard and battling hard. It's a tight game against them without many chances either way."
Markus Nutivaara opened the scoring at 12:06 with a one-timer off a draw won by Jenner. On a set play, CBJ defenseman drove a shot by the glove of John Gibson for his fourth goal of the season.
"It's hard for a goalie if I get it on net, so I just wanted to get it to the far side post," Nutivaara said. "I just got a good bounce and it was a hard shot for the goalie."
But after Anaheim wasn't able to generate much for the first 15 minutes of the period, the Ducks got on the board with 4:04 left. It came on a sharp angle shot by Daniel Sprong to the left of Sergei Bobrovsky's net that bounced off the Jackets' goaltender and into the net before he could cover the post.
The second period was most notable for the saves by Bobrosky, who stood tall twice in the second half of the period. The first was a post-to-post robbing of Ondrej Kase, who had been left alone in the right circle, and then the Jackets netminder stoned Pontus Aberg as the Ducks winger skated in alone after leaving the penalty box.
