"We're not going to think that because he's in there that we're not going to win," said Matt Duchene, whose dandy of a first-period goal was the lone tally for Columbus. "He's as good of a backup goalie as you're ever going to see. You take 'backup goalie' with a grain of salt when it's him. He's outstanding."
Korpisalo has turned in two straight strong starts for Columbus, including a 3-0 loss at Pittsburgh last week in which he only gave up two goals. Since Christmas, Korpisalo has appeared in 12 games with a 2.28 goals-against average and .919 save percentage.
"I feel my game is getting a little bit better all the time, especially after Christmas," he said. "I haven't been in too many games lately, but I go out there and try to enjoy the game. It's fun to play hockey."
2. Overtime blues: When Columbus got the game to overtime, you had to feel pretty good about their chances to leave with the second point, too. After all, the Blue Jackets had won six straight games that went to extra time and hadn't felt the sting of an extra-time loss since a Dec. 15 setback vs. Anaheim.
And they certainly had their chances. Duchene had the best two, walking down the slot to take a pass from Cam Atkinson before being denied by Jaroslav Halak, then stealing the puck from two Bruins, skating across the crease and firing only to see the puck fail to find the netting.
"I had two good looks," he said. "The second one, I like what I did. I think I had the goalie down and out, but (Charlie) McAvoy actually stopped it. It was the D-man who slid back. It's the way it goes. It's a coin flip when you get to overtime."
Artemi Panarin also had a good look in the extra time but couldn't score. Props also must go out to Pierre-Luc Dubois, who at one point outmuscled two Bruins for the puck in OT to set up a scoring chance for the Jackets.
Columbus is now 8-4 in overtime (excluding the shootout), but the plus-4 differential still leads the NHL.
"We have some great chances in overtime, we don't score," Tortorella said. "I thought the right people had the puck on their stick to try to score a goal. They have the right people also, they do score. That's the difference as far as the second point."
3. Ice woes: Throughout the game, the Bruins went slip-sliding across the TD Garden ice a number of times, and pucks were hopping over sticks left and right.
The answer as to why probably had something to do with the Boston Celtics game that was played in the afternoon. With the changeover, the ice was still covered past 5 p.m., and the result was a surface that was less than ideal.
"Really bad," defenseman Markus Nutivaara said. "Never seen that bad of ice."
"It was awful," Duchene said. "It was terrible. It was like pond ice back home at the end of March. We probably shouldn't have even been skating on it."
But the players questioned pointed out the conditions were the same for each team, and it forced the squads to play a more simple, direct game. In the end, Nutivaara said, it might have helped Columbus, especially the couple of times Boston struggled to find either its footing or the puck on some scoring chances.
"I think it worked for us a little bit," the defenseman said. "It was our back-to-back, and we were a little bit more tired, I guess."
