Quote of the Game
Foligno: "We played the right way tonight with our speed, our commitment to checking, our reloads. I felt like everyone was in sync with how we were playing. That was a pretty dominating performance from our team against a really good team."
CBJ Notables
Quick Recap
The teams skated to a 0-0 draw in the opening period, but there was no lack of talking points.
The biggest was the along-the-wall hit by Tom Wilson on Josh Anderson, who took the shot to the chest and crumpled to the ice. He eventually was able to get to his feet and skated off to the locker room but missed the rest of the period.
The Blue Jackets had two strong power plays in the period and also almost scored 4-on-4, as Nick Foligno drilled the post behind Braden Holtby with a backhander, but the team could not get on the board.
Things were different in the second period as the Jackets got on the board amid end-to-end action at 6:32 on a goal by Duclair. A long pass out of the zone during a Caps' change by Oliver Bjorkstrand caught Duclair in flight for a 2-on-1, and his shot went off the pad of Holtby and into the net.
"It was a good pass by Bjorky from the neutral zone there," Duclair said. "It was a 2-on-1 with Wenny there. I was thinking pass at first and then I saw the defenseman open up for me and I just wanted to shoot it. Lucky, it went in."
Anderson had a nice chance on a half-breakaway shortly thereafter but Holtby made the pad save, and Devante Smith-Pelly drew iron for the Caps moments after that on a rush. Dmitry Orlov also had some good looks in the period, while Alex Wennberg was alone in front on a feed from Duclair late in the period but fired wide.
Smith-Pelly nearly tied the score again early in the third as he drilled the post on a 2-on-1, but the Jackets put the gas pedal again from there. Atkinson and Anderson each had great chances on the penalty kill, with Atkinson drawing a penalty, and Artemi Panarin hit the crossbar on the ensuing power play.
Washington started to push in the final few minutes and produced some nervy moments, but Foligno iced things on a nifty counterattack goal with 3:47 to play. Foligno dropped a pass to Seth Jones, who returned it to the captain to fire home from the slot past Holtby to make it 2-0.
Bobrovsky made a huge stop on Tom Wilson with 1:35 to go as he smothered his shot in a scramble and then he dove to stop Nicklas Backstrom's shot on a rebound with 54.5 to play, and Panarin's empty-net goal with 9.9 left set the final margin.
By the Numbers
The Jackets are now 10-0-0 when Duclair scores a goal. … Columbus scored first for the fourth straight game and is 22-5-2 all season when tallying the opening goal. ... Jones now has an assist in four straight games. ... Bobrovsky now has 15 shutouts the past three seasons, most in the NHL and one ahead of Andrei Vasilevskiy and Pekke Rinne. ... Ryan Murray assisted on Foligno's goal and now has a career-high 26 points (1-25-26) on the season. ... Columbus finished 0-4 on the power play and killed the Caps' lone chance to make it 39 kills in the last 40 chances. ... The game concluded the season series between division rivals. Columbus won three of four games.
Roster Report
Columbus kept the same lineup as the team used in the past two games. Scratches included injured center Brandon Dubinsky, winger Eric Robinson and defenseman Dean Kukan.
Up Next
The Blue Jackets play their second straight game against a Metropolitan Division contender, taking on the first-place New York Islanders on Thursday at 7 p.m. at Nationwide Arena.
