After CBJ wins, we'll give three takeaways about what stood out or what we'll remember from the Blue Jackets' victory.
1. Mathieu Olivier called this a “measuring stick” game, and the Blue Jackets responded.
Columbus returned home to face Carolina from a successful three-game road trip in which it had dominated the puck, shots on goal and scoring chances against Tampa Bay, Florida and Philadelphia.
Yet no one does that to the Hurricanes. Since Rod Brind’Amour became head coach eight years ago, the Canes are the Corsi Kings of the NHL – they forecheck and pressure you into oblivion, they throw every puck they can at the net to create chaos and usually, by the end, they’ve won the game.
Carolina appears well on its way to a fourth Metropolitan Division title in the last six years, and the way Rick Bowness talks about his CBJ team – he wants pressure, he wants forechecking and he wants the puck going north as quickly as possible – sounds a lot like what the Hurricanes do.
So perhaps it was no surprise when Bowness got his back up a little bit when asked about how his team would match up against the Hurricanes’ suffocating style at his pregame media conference.
“They have to handle our pressure, too,” he said, in part.
On Tuesday night in Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets showed they were ready for that challenge, posting a 5-1 victory over the division leaders. The win was the team’s 17th in the last 23 games (17-2-4), ran the Jackets’ point streak to 10 (6-0-4) and improved their home point streak to double digits (7-0-3) as well.
It’s starting to feel like big things are brewing in Columbus, and the nearly wire-to-wire win over one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference was just a continuation of what the Blue Jackets have been doing.
“I felt like it was a good measuring stick for our group after the success we’ve had recently and the way we’ve been playing for the last two months,” Olivier said after a very Mathieu Olivier night (one goal, one fight). “They’re the best team at that style of play and they’ve proven it year after year.
“For our group to come out and have that kind of game and take that pressure to them and really just pull basically a perfect game at home, that’s a good step forward for our group for sure.”
And as much as Bowness was eager to deliver the message to the media pregame that, hey, the Blue Jackets are pretty good at this too, he had the same words for his team Tuesday morning. It’s fair to say the Blue Jackets took them to heart.
“Bones mentioned it this morning about not worrying about their pressure, but us throwing it back at them, seeing our pressure and seeing if they could handle it,” Charlie Coyle said after a very Charlie Coyle night (one goal, three assists). “And of course it worked out for us. ... There wasn’t a lot of room out there for them. I think if you asked them, they’d probably say that, and that fed right into our game.”
2. Coyle showed yet again why he’s become such an integral part of the squad in his first season in Columbus.
Let’s think of this as a question – where would the Blue Jackets be without him?
The veteran has pretty much done it all for Columbus, centering the team’s shutdown line, nearing a career high in points (with 55, he’s five away), turning the team’s No. 1 power play unit into a dynamic force and occasionally delivering an epic performance.
Tuesday was one of those nights. Coyle didn’t just post his third four-point night of the season, he scored a power-play goal with a nifty finish, delivered three primary assists, and helped shut down Carolina’s powerful trio of Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis.
“That’s probably one of the best games he’s played,” Bowness said. “Both ends of the ice, he was outstanding. You see him on those goals beating guys, those are one-on-one battles you need to win. He won them all and he set up those goals.”
While you could run down the list of Coyle’s excellent plays – his setup of Mason Marchment for the team’s opening goal on the power play, or his excellent hands at the net to make it 2-0 – the best might have come on the dagger tally that made it 5-1.
After Damon Severson stole the puck with a poke check and Cole Sillinger advanced the puck to Coyle, he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with K’Andre Miller from center ice all the way into the left circle. With his right hand shielding off Miller and his left on the stick, Coyle saw Jordan Martinook coming over to help and slid the puck to the slot to the onrushing Olivier, who beat goalie Brandon Bussi with a silky deke.
