It didn’t feel like a blockbuster trade when Columbus sent a pair of draft picks to Seattle for Marchment, but the veteran forward sure has been a fit for the Blue Jackets. Even more importantly, his addition has been a spark for the Blue Jackets, who are 6-2-1 in games he’s played this season.
“It’s really big to have a guy his caliber, his size,” Charlie Coyle said. “You can kind of play him up and down the lineup if needed. It seems like he’s scored every game for us so far that he’s been here, so we of course missed that type of player in our lineup the last however many weeks.”
As Coyle referenced, Marchment missed eight games with injury earlier this month, and it felt like there was a 6-5, 212-pound hole in the team’s lineup. He brings a lot to the table, as he’s a proven scorer at the NHL level with 22 tallies each of the past two seasons, his size adds another dimension to the CBJ forward group, and he’s also not afraid to mix it up with the opposition.
That was on display in his tiebreaking goal that gave the Blue Jackets a 5-4 lead – one they wouldn’t give up the rest of the way – in the second period. Marchment scored off a feed from Zach Werenski by beating goalie Jonas Johansson short side just six seconds after coming out of the penalty box, as he had been in a two-minute timeout after earning coincidental minors for a post-whistle scrum with Yanni Gourde.
It marked the second time in the game he’d beaten Johansson clean, and when Marchment posted an empty-net goal in the final minute, he had his third career hat trick and the Jackets’ second on the season.
“It was a quick release,” head coach Rick Bowness said of the tiebreaking goal. “You get those shots, and he’s got the hands. It’s on and off (his stick). You get it on and off, and that’s one of those releases that you can’t teach that stuff.”
2. Marchment was a key part of a CBJ top line that had a night to remember.
He wasn’t the only one to fill up the stat sheet with his four points, as Adam Fantilli broke a 17-game goalless streak with a tally and added two assists, while Kirill Marchenko had a pair of helpers to give the Jackets’ top line a total of nine points.
Their chemistry was evident on the ice and continued to postgame, as all three members posed for the above photo in the team's locker room to celebrate Marchment’s hat trick. And to hear them tell it, that bond hasn’t started to form by accident.
“He’s a super smart player, and I love how collaborative he has been with me and Marchy,” Fantilli said. “We’re talking a lot. We’re always trying to find little nuances to make each other work together better. He’s extremely smart, has a great shot, capitalized a ton tonight, and I’m really enjoying playing with him.”
That communication is important considering Marchment still hasn’t even reached double digits in games played for the Blue Jackets, but the relatively new CBJ wing said it has always been part of his game.
“I’m a big talker,” Marchment said. “I’m kind of getting these guys going. They’re talking a lot on the bench, too, which is fun. I think that's where it starts is just communication, and if you where the guy’s gonna be, it’s easy. We’re having fun and just trying to enjoy it.”
That word – fun – has been one we’ve heard a lot now as the Blue Jackets have won six of the last seven games, and it’s what Marchenko was going for when he was placed on a line with Marchment upon the latter's arrival.
“I think the first time we played together, (Marchenko) came up to me and said, ‘Let’s have some fun,’” Marchment said. “The energy is easy to feed off of, and it’s a lot of fun."
3. The Blue Jackets didn’t play the cleanest game, but they responded to each challenge thrown at them by Tampa Bay.
The Lightning entered the game with points in 15 straight games, with their 14-0-1 record in that span making them the NHL’s hottest team. Tampa Bay hadn’t lost in regulation since Dec. 18 – a stretch of over a month – and you can see why given how explosive their quick-strike offense can be.
Despite giving up the five goals, Columbus played a pretty solid game defensively for long stretches, but the Lightning made the Blue Jackets pay when they did make a mistake. That was largely because of Nikita Kucherov, who entered with 32 points in that 15-game streak and added four more Saturday, including a goal and an assist in a span of 1:29 in the second period that turned a 4-2 CBJ lead into a 4-4 game.
But each time Tampa Bay got on the board, the Blue Jackets answered. Columbus twice scored within a minute of a Lightning goal, and the Blue Jackets also tallied the next goal after all three instances in which Tampa tied the game.
The Blue Jackets had some advantages – Tampa Bay was on the second half of a back-to-back, entered without such key players as Brayden Point and Victor Hedman, and the Bolts lost two more defensemen in the course of the game in Erik Cernak and Charle-Edouard D’Astous – but Coyle said it was key to lean into them.
“It’s huge when there's never any doubt in our game tonight,” Coyle said. “They’re a good team playing a back-to-back, down defensemen. We had the energy, we had the legs. We have to just play the right way and we’ll be fine. I think we trusted that. We got away from that a little bit and it came back to bite us, but we didn’t get frustrated. We didn’t let it get to us.”
Fantilli echoed those thoughts, noting that the Blue Jackets were able to identify when they strayed from their game and got it back on the rails quickly.
“Having some of those situations where we maybe didn’t stick to our game and got away from it and seeing how fast they capitalized on that stuff just reinforces how much we have to stay on top of the puck and on top of their skilled players,” Fantilli said.
