Postgame Hat Trick: A much-needed win in Vancouver

The question was posed to Josh Anderson after the Blue Jackets' victory Sunday night at Vancouver.
It might not be a total must-win game, considering a loss wouldn't have officially eliminated Columbus from postseason contention or anything like that, but how did the team view the matchup against a reeling Canucks team?
"A must win," Anderson said matter-of-factly.

And win the Blue Jackets did,
putting together a 5-0 blanking
that stemmed the bleeding from what had been a winless road trip.
Here are three observations from a well-played Columbus victory on the coast Sunday night.
1. Dubois does it:To Dubois, the fact that he had played 13 games and scored zero goals was starting to turn comical.
"This was a slump where some games I was playing really well and I was getting chances, and you just don't score," he said. "You start off getting frustrated, then it ends up like, 'Is this a joke? What's going on?'"
To hear Dubois tell it, he'd have understood his lack of point production if he felt he had been playing poorly, but he said he was still among the team leaders in the rolling five-game scoring chance average the coaching staff posts for players each game.
That is what made his inability to get on the score sheet so surprising, and it wasn't just goals -- Dubois went 11 games in a row without even a single point.
For someone who had already posted career highs of 23 goals and 31 points, the run was exceptional, but in a bad way. But it was an exception to the rule, and finally things turned Dubois' way on Sunday night. After assisting on Anderson's first-period goal, he made it 2-0 in the second when he finally got off the schneid, scoring from the slot after taking a feed from Artemi Panarin and cutting to the middle of the ice.
From there, Dubois looked like a different player, confidently linking up with his linemates in the attack.
"That was huge," Anderson said. "It's a big goal at the time, too. Obviously in the last couple of games he's been snakebitten. It's nice for him to get that."
2. Bob bounces back:Bobrovsky started the team's 4-2 loss at Calgary on Tuesday and played the entirety. The team then flew to Edmonton on Wednesday and did not practice, so when the goaltender wasn't on the ice at Thursday's morning skate before the matchup with the Oilers, there were question marks.
Bobrovsky cleared things up a bit Saturday when he said an upper-body injury had been nagging him, and he didn't feel as though he was healthy enough to help the team in the setback vs. the Oilers.
By the time the team got to Vancouver, there was little doubt Bobrovsky was back as his old self. He didn't have to do a ton in the team's victory against the Canucks, making 21 saves, but a handful were top-shelf.
He wasn't even a full shift into the game when he kicked away a deflection by Loui Eriksson, and Bobrovsky later made a number of quick-reflex saves on Vancouver's four power-play attempts. Afterward, the goalie complimented his team's ability to allow him to see the puck and protect the middle of the ice.

"I felt pretty good," he said. "It feels comfortable to play. I thought the guys helped me a lot out there. It's a good team win."
The shutout was Bobrovsky's seventh of the year, second in the league and tying a career high, and he has now allowed just 10 goals in his last seven starts.
"He's a special player, obviously," forward Ryan Dzingel said. "He's one of a kind, too, so he's our guy we need to perform to get us in, and he definitely did that tonight. Sometimes the shots don't always show how well goalies play and big saves in certain situations. He played awesome tonight."
3. Scoreboard watching: Opinions were mixed whether members of the team knew that the two teams the Blue Jackets are chasing for a wild card spot, Carolina and Montreal, played a three-point game at PNC Arena on Sunday. With the time zone difference, the Hurricanes' 2-1 overtime win was over before Columbus took the ice to play the Canucks.
"Guys are watching in the warmups," Anderson said. "They have the scores up there, so we saw it go into overtime."
"Not really," Dzingel said, on the other hand, when asked if the team knew the result. "You hear whispers and stuff like that about OT, but that's all we hear of."
One person who admitted the truth is head coach John Tortorella, who previously spent a year coaching the Canucks.
"That's one thing that's cool about here," he said. "Coaching out here, you get to see the 7 o'clock games. So yeah, we watched it."
With the combination of results, Columbus stayed five points behind Carolina for the first wild card while pulling within two points of Montreal, who occupies the East's last playoff spot.