Duchene, Blue Jackets defeat Senators after trade

OTTAWA -- Matt Duchene made his debut for the Columbus Blue Jackets in a 3-0 win against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Friday.

"I enjoyed myself out there," Duchene said. "It was obviously a good way to kind of end my time as a Senator]. Actually [I] probably felt more comfortable because I was in this building than had we gone somewhere else."
Earlier Friday, Ottawa traded the center and defenseman Julius Bergman to Columbus for forward prospects Vitaly Abramov and Jonathan Davidsson, a first-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and a conditional first-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft.
***[WATCH: [All Blue Jackets vs. Senators highlights]*
"We know what type of player [Duchene] is," Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. "He's skilled, you can see the skill, you can see [Duchene, Artemi Panarin and Cam Atkinson] playing tonight together. Sometimes maybe too much skill, east to west. But it's a great addition to our hockey club up the middle of the ice."
Duchene had three shots in 19:11. For the second time in 15 months, he debuted for a new team against one that just traded him; Duchene faced the Colorado Avalanche with the Senators on Nov. 10, 2017, five days after he was traded.
"It's probably a whirlwind day for [Duchene]," Columbus forward Nick Foligno said. "To which he said, it's pretty funny, he goes, 'I'm actually used to this,' with what he did when he came [to Ottawa]. As he gets more comfortable and understands us better, I think his skill and everything will take off even more."
Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves, and Josh Anderson, Atkinson and Oliver Bjorkstrand scored for the Blue Jackets (34-23-3), who won for the first time in three games and moved into third place in the Metropolitan Division. They are tied in points with the Pittsburgh Penguins, who hold the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

Craig Anderson made 37 saves for the Senators (22-34-5), who lost their third straight game and were shut out for the second game in a row. They lost 4-0 at the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.
Duchene was a healthy scratch in that game, and Ottawa forwards Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel were healthy scratches Friday for the second straight game with the NHL Trade Deadline approaching Monday at 3 p.m. ET. Each of the three can become an unrestricted free agent July 1.
"It just shows you how hard it is to produce in the NHL," Senators coach Guy Boucher said. "You've got your high-end core players; they produce, but they also make the other guys produce. The other guys, the complementary players, all of a sudden get a lot of points. If you take out those high-end guys, then the complementary players have to become the go-to guys and that's very difficult."
The Blue Jackets took a 1-0 lead at 14:43 of the first period when Anderson one-timed a pass from Pierre-Luc Dubois from the right face-off circle.
Atkinson finished a forehand deke on a shorthanded breakaway over Anderson's glove to make it 2-0 at 6:45 of the third period.

Bjorkstrand scored on a pass from Zach Werenski on a 2-on-1 to make it 3-0 with 2:46 remaining in the third.
"It was fun [playing with Panarin and Atkinson]," Duchene said. "I thought the fact that we didn't get [a goal] 5-on-5 was crazy tonight. I thought we did a lot of good things. Obviously [we hit] a goal post early, a crossbar on the power play, but I thought we did some good things and we'll just keep getting better the more we play together."

They said it

"I think it just sends a message of how serious management is about this group and how much it believes in us. For them to go out and get a great player like [Duchene] obviously shows that they want to win. I'm not saying that we're going for it here. I think we've got an opportunity to get better and that's what they wanted to do." -- Blue Jackets forward Nick Foligno on the trade for Matt Duchene
"I think the organization has looked at our situation down the middle of the ice for now a couple of years. It's hard to have a strong center ice. It's hard to find a center-ice man when you think you need one. This is a very good player that, in our situation right now, as we're trying to fight to get in (the playoffs), it's really good timing, obviously. So I'm anxious to get to understand him." -- Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella on Matt Duchene
"You could see Brown on the power play has got really good vision. Obviously, 5-on-5, it's a much quicker step here than it is in the [American Hockey League], so he'll adapt to the speed and the quickness of how you're being challenged from the opposition. … But I think one more game and you'll see Brown is probably going to adapt on 5-on-5 and figure it out." -- Senators coach Guy Boucher on forward Logan Brown, who played 9:19 his first NHL game of the season after being called up from Belleville of the AHL

Need to know

With his assist, Dubois (142 games) became the fastest Blue Jackets player to reach 100 points, breaking the record held by Nikolay Zherdev (156). … Bobrovsky got his fourth shutout of the season and the 28th of his NHL career. … Ottawa has gone 125:17 without scoring.

What's next

Blue Jackets: Host the San Jose Sharks on Saturday (5 p.m. ET; FS-O, NBCSCA, NHL.TV)
Senators: Host the Calgary Flames on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; SN, TVAS, NHL.TV)