Marchenko winner

After CBJ wins, we'll give three takeaways about what stood out or what we'll remember from the Blue Jackets victory.

RECAP: Blue Jackets 3, Kings 2, OT

1. If there were an All-Star Game this year, it would be hard for the powers that be to pass on Kirill Marchenko.

The NHL is opting to stage the 4 Nations Face-Off this year instead of a traditional All-Star Weekend, and frankly the international tournament should be pretty fun to watch. But it’s also unfortunate for someone like Marchenko, who certainly deserves a chance to be on the big stage an All-Star event provides with his play this season.

His Bobby Orr-esque, I’m gonna win the game now-type move to finish off the Kings on Saturday night at Nationwide Arena was more proof of that. It was not only his team-best 20th goal of the year, it moved him to a tie for 17th in the NHL in points with 53, and he continues to lead the league with a plus-29 rating.

He’s also fifth in the Metropolitan Division in points among forwards behind only Carolina’s newly acquired Mikko Rantanen, New Jersey’s Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt, and Philadelphia’s Travis Konecny.

That sure sounds like All-Star level production to me.

The game winner was another moment of wonder from the third-year Russian forward, as he took Ivan Provorov’s pass while cruising up the left wing, realized he was being defended by forward Kevin Fiala and hit the jets. After getting around Fiala with ease, Marchenko was one-on-one with goalie Darcy Kuemper, cutting across the crease and tucking the puck home just as he went flying through the air.

LAK@CBJ: Marchenko scores goal against Darcy Kuemper

The goal prompted goalie Elvis Merzlikins to say Marchenko looked like “the Russian Bobby Orr,” though the man himself downplayed that comparison.

“I don’t want to talk about that much because Bobby Orr is a legend,” Marchenko said. “I know only that.”

As for his thought process on the goal, Marchenko said, “I go against a forward, and if someone is going against me, it’s so hard to defend because I am not a really good backward skater. I just think about that – if it’s a forward, I can beat him. It’s not really hard for me. I just drive the net, that’s it.”

The funny part is Marchenko technically wasn’t even supposed to be on the ice for his second career OT goal with 1:15 left in the extra frame. He had already taken two shifts in overtime totaling 1:45 by that point and had passed 25 minutes of ice time for the first time in his career, and head coach Dean Evason was ready to send out another forward when he looked down the bench and saw Marchenko was ready. The rest, as they say, was history.

“We actually had two other guys going in overtime on that last shift, and he like literally eyeballed me to go back on the ice,” Evason said. “He’s competing his (butt) off, and it’s allowed him to have success for the team.”

2. Merzlikins continued his strong run of play with another standout performance.

It’s also fair to say Marchenko wouldn’t have had a chance to perform his magic if Merzlikins hadn’t been as good as he was. The goaltender stopped 31 of 33 shots – making several spectacular saves – while improving to 9-2-1 in his last 12 starts. In his last five, he’s allowed just nine goals with a .934 save percentage.

LAK@CBJ: Merzlikins with a great save against Adrian Kempe

When asked about his play of late, Merzlikins said he was just doing his part to help the Jackets push for the postseason.

“I’m just focusing game by game,” he said. “Every game is two huge points right now in the standings. Obviously, it’s tight. Of course, there are going to be mistakes, there are going to be bad nights, but we all together are just focusing on those two points.”

It’s been an interesting sixth season in Columbus for Merzlikins, who has had times where he’s shared the crease with Daniil Tarasov and Jet Greaves, and other moments where he’s appeared to be the clear No. 1 for the Blue Jackets. His play of late shows that he’s deserving of that role, and his 2.95 goals-against average for the season is his best since 2020-21.

“What we really like is his ability to calm things down in the zone,” Evason said postgame. “Sure, Elvis makes some spectacular saves, highlight-reel saves, but the ones that are fantastic are the ones that he catches when we’re stuck in our zone and he smothers pucks – call him Velcro or whatever, they hit him and he just holds them and there’s not a lot of chaos after. He’s done a real good job of doing that, but he’s also done a really good job of personally, for him, staying calm when things get a little hectic as well.”

3. This one wasn’t pretty, but the Blue Jackets did what they had to do to get the win.

Columbus has been the highest-scoring team in the NHL at 5-on-5 as well as at home in Nationwide Arena this year, so there’s confidence in their ability to score goals. But you kind of knew going into this matchup that the six-goal outbursts that marked the first half of the season weren’t going to be seen on Saturday night.

Los Angeles is one of the biggest, heaviest teams in the NHL, and defense is the name of their game, as the Kings entered with the lowest mark in the league of expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 per MoneyPuck.com. For the layman, that means creating offense against the Kings and getting to the difficult scoring areas is as tough as it gets, and that was obvious pretty much from the opening puck drop.

The Blue Jackets struggled to create at times throughout the night, but that just meant they’d have to win a 3-2 slugfest instead of a 7-6 shootout.

“Oh, the Kings are a really hard team,” Marchenko said. “I hate to play against this team because they don’t give you ice, and they are really good in the battles. It’s hard to play against this team. We just try to do our best. We say it’s a good D-zone structure for us because a lot of time today, we play in the D-zone. Elvis make a couple of saves, we have a lot of good blocked shots and good sticks. It’s a hard win for us.”

Right now, the days of putting up six goals are going to be harder and harder to come by. Part of it is the natural order of things, as teams figure out their systems as the season goes by and clamp down defensively as the playoff push intensifies. Part of it is because the Blue Jackets skated Saturday night without four players you’d consider top-six forwards in Boone Jenner, Sean Monahan, Yegor Chinakhov and Cole SIllinger.

There are still plenty of players up front – not to mention Zach Werenski, who extended his home point streak to 19 with a first-period goal – who can fill the net, but winning a few games like this one will be a necessity down the stretch.

“We have a confidence,” Marchenko said. “We feel better when we win these games. It’s hard games. We need to learn how to win every game – 6-5 or 2-1, 1-0 or 3-2. We don't care. We think about two points.”

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