SvoNotes: It's parm time! Buccigross receives tasty gift from CBJ

When you're John Buccigross, chicken parmesan tends to follow you wherever you go.
The longtime hockey fan and ESPN broadcaster has made the popular Italian dish his thing, rating fan submissions on social media (

But even Buccigross couldn't have quite been prepared for the delivery he received at the end of Monday night's Blue Jackets game, a 5-4 loss for the home team against visiting Toronto. After the final horn, the Blue Jackets partnered with fellow ESPN broadcaster Arda Ocal to deliver the former Steubenville, Ohio, resident and Tiffin University graduate a monster dish of chicken parm put together by the staff at Martini Modern Italian, a member of the Cameron Mitchell family of restaurants.
Buccigross clearly appreciated the gesture, sitting down to eat the plate-sized, rigatoni-topped parm during the ESPN+ postgame show following the broadcast of the game.

"Cameron Mitchell, you're a legend," Buccigross said afterward. "Thank you, first class parm, as big as my face, as big as a sewer lid. Veal meatballs, the whole thing. I really appreciate it. Ohio is No. 1. You're No. 1."
The dinner also included a signature meatball and tiramisu from Marcella's, another Cameron Mitchell restaurant, as well as an order of Timbits from Tim Hortons for analyst Cassie Campbell-Pascall. And, of course, the delivery also included some Fun Dip for the road.
But the parm was the star of the show, as it was prepared and delivered by Peter Chapman, regional director for Cameron Mitchell who is in charge of the Martini and Marcella's concepts. It was not the easiest of tasks -- the piece of chicken was so big that it required a pizza peel to flip -- but Chapman made it happen.
The dish is of course a signature of a restaurant like Martini and a favorite of both Blue Jackets and visiting NHL players over the years. The Martini version features a base layer of marinara, with the chicken placed on top of that, then a layer of alfredo, the rigatoni and finally provolone melted on top.
"There's really nothing tricky here," Chapman said. "It's just constructed beautifully. We have a beautiful layer of marinara, we have chicken parm, we have pounded chicken breast -- we bread it up and make it nice and crispy -- and then here's where it starts to get really interesting and how we make the perfect bite. We coat it with alfredo all over the top, then we do fresh rigatoni -- we use all fresh pasta here, never, ever dried pasta.
"Then we coat it with cheese, and that way, every single bite, you're gonna get a little pasta, you're gonna get a little creamy, you're gonna get a little acidic, you're gonna get some crunch. You get the perfect bite every time."
Chapman went over the dish with Buccigross and was able to chat with the ESPN star once the broadcast was off the air, then able to celebrate a job well done.
"It's fantastic," he said of the experience of making the dish for one of the NHL's new broadcast partners. "Are you kidding me? Being able to present our version of chicken parm to the whole world, it doesn't really get much better than this."

Meanwhile, On The Ice...

Blue Jackets head coach Brad Larsen chose to look at the positives after a game that essentially summed up the five-game homestand for the Blue Jackets that was concluded by the game with the Leafs.
Columbus went 1-2-2 in the quintet of games in Nationwide Arena, but it could have been a lot better. Facing teams in playoff position in all four of the losses, the Blue Jackets were ahead or tied in the third period in each of those games but ended up short of the points they could have earned and perhaps even deserved.
But there was a silver lining for Larsen on Monday night, and it had to do with the team's response. Playing a third game in four days and coming off a tremendously emotional night Saturday when the organization retired Rick Nash's jersey No. 61, the Blue Jackets were beaten out of the gates by the Maple Leafs, being out-attempted 31-10 and falling into a 3-0 hole after 20 minutes.
Instead of laying down, though, the Blue Jackets rallied to tie the score at 3 early in the third, then nearly tied it again in the final minute.

"We talked after the first," Larsen said. "We've been there before in some of these games where we didn't get back to our game. I know where we're at. We need the two points here and we can't afford to not get them right now, but it was a step for us tonight against a really good team to stay in it and work ourselves back in the game. ...
"There was no quit in our guys tonight, and for a young team, that's a step. We don't get the result. We know what it is - we need points - but some of these games that started that way continued on several weeks ago, and it didn't tonight. That's the one positive out of tonight."
It is fair to say there has been progress for the Blue Jackets, who have played much better hockey over the past month-plus and compiled a 10-5-2 record in that span. Certainly, it hasn't been perfect -- the team remains near the bottom of the league in goals allowed per game -- but the intensity level, the compete level, the ability to get the puck up the ice and the ability to put it in the net have all been much more consistent.
It's likely what Columbus had in mind when it decided not to do a full rebuild but a reload this offseason. While many household names like Nick Foligno, Seth Jones, Cam Atkinson and David Savard were traded from the organization in the past year, Columbus didn't tear things down to the studs, acquiring a bevy of draft picks but still keeping a competitive team on the ice.
That has placed the team ninth in the Eastern Conference, one position out of a playoff spot. That will be a hard gap to close -- Washington remains 10 points ahead of the Blue Jackets with 25 games to go -- but one of the youngest teams in the NHL has worked itself into a position where it's playing meaningful hockey down the stretch.
That's why the fightback against the Leafs was seen as progress, as there were a handful of games earlier this year where the Blue Jackets struggled out of the gates and never came close to recovering.
"We knew we had to come out of the gates flying in the second to bounce back and outwork them, match their intensity at the very least, and I thought we did a very good job of that," forward Max Domi said. "There's been a few games this year when it's gone the other way, so I think that's where some growth has happened.
"We'll take that as a positive, but that's tough. We wanted to get that win."

Stats and Facts

• Columbus got goals from Patrik Laine, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Sean Kuraly and Jack Roslovic, while Domi and Nyquist each had two assists.
• Laine's tally was his 16th in 17 games, while Bjorkstrand scored his eighth goal in 13 contests. Kuraly's goal was his ninth of the season, setting a new career high, while Roslovic scored for the 10th time on the year.
• Bjorkstrand also became the third CBJ player to 20 goals on the year, joining Laine and captain Boone Jenner. He has reached 20 goals for the third time in his career.
• Zach Werenski had an assist on Laine's extra-attacker goal in the final minute, giving him 224 career points (74-150-224) to set a new CBJ record for points among defensemen. He broke the mark previously owned by former partner Jones (50-173-223).
• Jake Voracek had an assist on the Laine goal as well, giving him 40 assists on the season for the seventh time in his career. He is the first CBJ player to reach the mark since Artemi Panarin had a team-record 59 in 2018-19.
• Kuraly skated 19:25, the second-highest total of the season for the Dublin native. Of that time, 17:57 came at even strength, most among CBJ forwards.
• Columbus had a 22-9 edge in hits, while Domi dropped the gloves with Justin Holl in the second period.