After CBJ wins, we'll give three takeaways about what stood out or what we'll remember from the Blue Jackets victory.
1. After the Blue Jackets’ latest win over a quality opponent, Mathieu Olivier said something you could describe as interesting after the game.
Perhaps we’re drawing a little bit too much attention into this, but the big CBJ wing was asked about the 3-0-1 homestand the Blue Jackets just put in the books when he dared mention the P-word.
“Now, we’re a little over .500, but we’re pushing for the playoffs here,” Olivier said after the Blue Jackets improved to 10-9-3. “We have a lot of work to do. This is the time of year teams separate from others, and this is where we have to bear down and keep going here.”
The game was the 22nd of 82 on the year for Columbus, which means there are still 60 contests to play. There’s a lot of hockey left between now and April, but Olivier mentioning the postseason perhaps shows what the Blue Jackets think they have in the locker room.
We’ll make a caveat here. Every NHL player reports for the season expecting to be on one of the 16 of 32 teams to play postseason hockey. No matter if the prognosticators say you’ll win the Stanley Cup or finish 32nd, everyone goes into the season with the goal in mind that they’ll be playing for the big trophy at the end of the campaign.
The win over Calgary moved Columbus, in terms of point percentage, into the eighth and final spot in the Eastern Conference race, so perhaps Olivier was on the right track there.
Again, there’s a lot of hockey to be played, but we’ve noticed something about this Blue Jackets team throughout this season.
There’s a quiet belief that this team belongs, that it has a collection of players that can stick in this race for the long haul. It’s not boastful, but the Blue Jackets have set a goal and they’re doing what they can to get there.
And on Friday afternoon, they showed why they believe that. The scorers scored – Adam Fantilli tallied twice, while the Blue Jackets got goals from Kent Johnson, Zach Werenski and Kirill Marchenko – while everyone else played their role. That includes three fights on the evening, two by Olivier and one by defenseman Jake Christiansen, who had exactly zero professional scraps to his record before Friday.
Add in a solid outing from Elvis Merzlikins and the Blue Jackets did what they had to do to down one of the top teams in the Western Conference thus far.
“It feels like it’s just team unity through the whole thing,” Olivier said postgame.
2. Speaking of Olivier, he showed again why he might be the toughest customer in the NHL.
The 27-year-old wing has told anyone who would listen this year that he’s not just a set of fists, and he’s proved it by tying for second so far on the squad with seven goals on the campaign.
But those fists ... there might not be another pair like them in the league.
Olivier dropped the gloves twice in this one, first when Martin Pospisil took issue with an Olivier hit in the second period and then later in the frame when Ryan Lomberg wanted to further adjudicate what had happened earlier.
For anyone who thought the teams would sing “Kumbaya” in this rare afternoon start, that was quickly dispelled in the middle frame.
“I’m never one to think a fight’s a bad thing,” Olivier said postgame.
Based on the reaction of the 17,000-plus in Nationwide Arena, it’s clear many would agree.
Olivier’s first bout came just after the midway point of the middle frame, as Calgary defenseman Joel Hanley went into the corner to play the puck; Olivier finished his check but sent Hanley hard into the boards, and Pospisil met him in the neutral zone to drop the gloves, setting off a massive brouhaha.
After that tilt, Olivier skated by the Calgary bench and let them know he’d welcome any other challengers. Once Olivier was out of the box late in the period, Lomberg obliged in a scrap that certainly showed off the CBJ wing’s skills in that area.
As Olivier skated to the CBJ bench after the tilt, he stretched his arms wide and pumped up the Nationwide Arena crowd, which responded in turn.
“I blacked out,” Olivier said of that moment. “Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you. I heard the Stone Cold music and I blacked out.”
His teammates thoroughly enjoyed the display, something Adam Fantilli confirmed postgame.
“You guys see him out there,” Fantilli said. “He might be the scariest guy on the ice in the league. I’m not gonna lie. I was telling him he should call out Jake Paul when he came in for media.”
Head coach Dean Evason said he understands and approves of why that part of the game has taken a backseat over the years. But he said there are certain moments when players have to stick up for themselves, and Olivier did just that.
“The most important thing is the guys are sticking together,” Evason said. “I’m not encouraging that we’re fighting every night, but it’s just that we’re together. It happens.”
The reviews were equally as strong for Christiansen, who chose to answer the bell when Pospisil asked early in the second after a good, clean hit by the CBJ defenseman. Christiansen was at the end of a nearly two-minute shift and had never dropped the gloves in his professional career, but he stood in with Pospisil in a bout that included as much grappling as anything else.
“I probably can’t express how much I like it,” Evason said when asked about that situation. “It is part of the game, and Christy is a hockey player. A situation happened that he was put in a spot to defend himself, and he did.”
And if there were any questions about how that was received in the locker room, those were answered when Christiansen received the donkey hat given to the player of the game from his teammates.
“That was great,” Fantilli said.
“I thought Christy did a hell of a job,” Olivier said. “He didn’t need to do that at all. His hit was clean, and he was at the end of a shift. And he did. He stood in there. He did a good job. That’s what we want to build here.”
3. As for Fantilli, you could tell how much it meant to him to get back on the score sheet.
The second-year center had said all the right things, but when you don’t score a goal for more than a month (his previous tally was Oct. 28) and you’re used to being someone counted on for offensive production, it can be difficult mentally.
But Fantilli busted out in a big way against the Flames, starting the scoring in the first period and then adding an insurance marker in the third for the second two-goal game of his NHL career.
“Pretty huge,” he said when asked about the size of the monkey that came off his back with the first goal. “I was definitely starting to think about it a little bit. Just glad to get it off.”
The opening goal wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty, but it got the job done. With the Blue Jackets late in a power play, Fantilli took the puck at the left point and skated it down the wall when afforded the time you might get on the man advantage. When he got to the hashmarks, he threw the puck at the net, where it went off the glove of goalie Dustin Wolf and clattered into the net.
James van Riemsdyk was at the front of the net and it appeared he might have gotten a tip on the shot, but in the end, it was Fantilli’s goal.
“When they’re not going in, you have to try everything,” Fantilli said. “That ended up going in. I’m grateful. I thought it was Riemer’s for a little bit, so it ended up being mine, so it’s great.”
By the time he finished off a third-period 2-on-1 by making no mistake on a perfect feed from Kirill Marchenko, Fantilli was fully back on the score sheet. That part doesn’t mean a ton to Evason, but he was happy to see the No. 3 pick in the 2023 draft finally get a pair in the net because he deserved it based on his overall play.
“He’s been committed to doing the right things in the right areas,” Evason said. “OK, has he sacrificed maybe a little bit of risky offensive play to be a good, defensive, sound player? Maybe. But we know in the long run, he knows in the long run, if he continues to play like he has played literally all year – he's had some learning curves, but if he plays the right way defensively and sound in all areas, the scoring will come. It came tonight.”
