FINAL: Panthers 5, Blue Jackets 4 (OT)

The Blue Jackets lost a 5-4 game to Florida in overtime on Thursday night at Nationwide Arena.
Game in a Paragraph
Columbus got to the midway point of the season with a dispiriting loss thanks to a blown third-period lead. A pair of second-period goals gave the team a lead, one Columbus extended to 4-1 early in the third period, but Florida battled back to make it a 4-4 game in the final six minutes. Frank Vatrano then got the winning goal in overtime to extend the Jackets' losing skid to three.

Quote of the Game
Oliver Bjorkstrand: "There's positive things, but I'm sure there's also negatives. We aren't really winning. Something has to change for us to win."
CBJ Standouts

Quick Recap
Columbus started brightly with some good looks at the net but it was a 0-0 game after one. Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made some strong stops in the early going, including denying Bjorkstrand on a 2-on-1 and stopping a bang-bang shot for Jack Roslovic. He also got lucky at one point that the puck hopped over the stick of Zach Werenski on a rush, while Merzlikins' best save came on a point-blank shot by Vatrano during a scramble in front of the net late in the period.
The Blue Jackets carried play in the second period, though, with a 15-4 edge in shots on goal, and led 2-1 after 40 minutes of play. Merzlikins made a close-in stop on Jonathan Huberdeau in the opening minutes of the frame and Columbus surged from there, taking the lead on a pair of goals by Bjorkstrand.
First, The Maestro got on the board at the 6:00 mark on a 2-on-1 with Domi. Roslovic helped win the puck in the defensive zone and got it to Domi, who skated the puck up the ice, waited for defenseman Markus Nutivaara to go down then flipped a pass across the slot to Bjorkstrand for an easy high finish.
Bjorkstrand then made it 2-0 at the 10:14 mark of the frame. A long shift in the CBJ offensive zone for the top line ended with Riley Nash possessing the puck behind the net with plenty of time, and he picked up Bjorkstrand low on the right and fed him for a shot into the top corner past Bobrovsky's blocker.
But Florida would get one back with 3:10 to go, as the team's only long shift in the CBJ end during the period notching a goal. Gustav Forsling's shot from the left point was tipped in the slot by Patric Hornqvist and got by Merzlikins to make it a 2-1 game.
Just like the second period, Merzlikins made an excellent early stop on Huberdeau on the doorstep in the opening minutes of the third, then Columbus tallied twice in a row. Laine made it 3-1 late on a power play with 3:23 off the clock, as he took a feed from Werenski and ripped a shot under Bobrovsky's glove arm. Domi followed, taking a pass from Bjorkstrand, skating up the ice on a 2-on-1 and slipping what appeared to be a try at a centering pass through the legs of Bobrovsky 1:20 later to make it 4-1.
Florida responded at the 6:34 mark on a well-taken first career NHL goal by Ryan Lomberg. Merzlikins parried a shot by Noel Acciari on the rush, but Lomberg was the first one to it and took a baseball swing to bat the puck past the CBJ goalie from low on the left.
Then with 7:39 to play, Florida's Owen Tippett scored for the second time in as many games, taking a drop feed on a rush in the left circle from MacKenzie Weegar and ripping a shot off the far post and into the net behind Merzlikins to make it a 4-3 game.
Then with 5:10 to go, Florida completed the comeback by scoring a power-play goal. It was a well-worked play, with Huberdeau feeding Keith Yandle for a pass across the royal road to Aleksander Barkov, who put a shot from the right dot past the flailing Merzlikins.
With all the momentum, Florida controlled overtime (a 4-0 shot edge with multiple big stops by Merzlikins) and finally got the winner on an odd-man rush, as Huberdeau was denied by Merzlikins on a 2-on-1 but Vatrano drove home the rebound at 2:48 of the extra frame.
3 Takeaways
1. Yikes: For 45 minutes, Columbus turned in its best performance of the season, driving play, escaping their own zone with confidence, attacking through the neutral zone and finishing enough to take a 4-1 lead. Then, disaster struck. Florida got a bit of a lucky but beautiful goal from Lomberg, then gained steam from there, forcing Columbus into a pair of penalties and finally tying things on the power play. Overtime, all things considered, was academic considering Florida had the momentum and confidence. To say the Jackets had little to say postgame was a bit of an understatement. "Having a 4-1 lead in the third, you can't lose those games," Laine said. "That's just a fact." Added Bjorkstrand: "It sucks. It's not good enough. Not much to say. Have to be better."
2. Looking at the positives: That makes Tortorella's job, in some ways, to make sure this team doesn't succumb to the negative energy because, to be fair, there's a lot of it right now. Every time it seems like the Blue Jackets are close to turning the corner, the other shoe drops, and it's a Monty Python-sized foot that goes in that shoe. So those first 45 minutes were the focus of Tortorella's postgame press conference. "I think our whole concept of how we're trying to play is getting better," he said. "You may think I'm nuts saying it after losing a game like this, but I'm going to look at the stuff that got us to the point we were up 4-1. We certainly made some mistakes in the second half of that third period that cost us, but I'm not going to focus on that. It would be useless for this club to go that route."
3. Lainegate: No, not the party on Lane Avenue. For the second time this season, Laine didn't play for a long stretch, this time seeing just 2:20 of action in the final period including no time in the last 6:53 and overtime. He skated just three shifts in the third period, and all ended in goals -- his power-play tally and the second and third Florida scores. In all, he was minus-2, being on the ice for the first three Florida goals. Tortorella is known for shortening his bench as games go on to go with the players who are rolling (Roslovic, Eric Robinson and Emil Bemstrom were in a similar boat), but Laine seemed to think he was in the group that was playing well. "Yeah, we got scored on a couple of times (when I was on the ice), but I think the first two, if you take out the one play where the puck was bouncing a little bit and I couldn't get it out, I thought I was playing good. But I guess I was wrong." Tortorella said only, "At that point in the game, that's just the way it worked out." Well, it'll be talking point going forward for a few days, won't it?
Notable
Bjorkstrand now has 75 career goals, good for 10th place all alone in CBJ annals. He moved into 10th with his goal Tuesday. Bjorkstrand also took the team lead in points this season with 22. … Atkinson had an assist, giving him a 9-7-16 line in the last 17 games. ... Hornqvist has three goals this year vs. Columbus and 18 in his career, most vs. any NHL foe. ... Bobrovsky is now 3-0 this year vs. Columbus. ... The Blue Jackets scored first for the 19th time this season and is now 8-6-5 in such cases, including a 4-1-2 record when making it 2-0. … Columbus had been outscored 34-19 in the second period this year. … The Jackets fell to 1-6 in overtime this year (0-4 when decided before the shootout). ... The Blue Jackets have earned four of a potential eight points in four games this year vs. Florida and is 14-1-3 vs. the Panthers in Nationwide Arena in the last 18 games.
Roster Report
Vladislav Gavrikov was scratched after his wife gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, on Thursday. It ended a seven-game stretch with no changes to the 18-skater lineup. Gavrikov was out along with forward Mikhail Grigorenko as well as defenseman Scott Harrington as Dean Kukan went into the lineup.
Up Next
Columbus and hosts Dallas in a pair of games at Nationwide Arena on Saturday and Sunday, with both faceoffs set for 5 p.m.