Friday night, Artemi Panarin was able to put together one of the most impressive nights in Blue Jackets history.
Five points? Pretty damn good. Five assists? Even better. Five primary assists? Well, that’s just weird – and speaks to exactly just how good the Breadman can be with the puck.
As many likely know – largely because everyone and their mother posted about it after Panarin’s performance – only one other player in Columbus Blue Jackets history had ever had five assists in a game. That was Espen Knutsen, as “Shampoo” had helpers on goals scored by Jamie Heward (twice), David Vyborny, Deron Quint and Alex Selivanov as the Blue Jackets posted a 6-4 win vs. Calgary on March 24, 2001.
That got me thinking – what are some of the other single-game, notable performances in the Blue Jackets record book that fans may or may not know but have stood the test of time in franchise history?
Luckily, they do have an actual record book. In fact, it’s a nice part of the team’s media guide, which checks in at more than 300 pages this year.
So what are some of those notable accomplishments? I'm glad you (well, I) asked...
Most goals: 4 for Geoff Sanderson on March 29, 2003, at Calgary. I'll be honest, if you had put a gun to my head and asked me the only player to have ever scored four goals in a game for the Blue Jackets, I wouldn't have picked Sanderson. Maybe that was a blind spot in my knowledge of Blue Jackets history. Anyway, Sanderson accomplished the feat in the fifth-from-last game of the 2003 season in a 6-4 CBJ win at the Saddledome. What's funny is the Jackets held a 2-0 lead after the first period thanks to goals by Andrew Cassels and Matt Davidson, neither of whom are Geoff Sanderson if you're scoring at home. But Sanderson took over after Calgary took a 3-0 lead, tying the score with a power-play goal at 6:20 of the second, giving the Jackets the lead at 12:38 and then completing the natural hat trick at 16:03 of the second with another power-play tally, giving him 30 goals on the year. Sanderson later added an empty-net goal to get his fourth and make franchise history. A bit underrated in this game was Cassels, who had four helpers to go with his opening goal.
Most penalty minutes: 31 for Duvie Westcott on April 13, 2006 at St. Louis. With just four games left in the season, the Blue Jackets were yet again playing out the string, but no one told Westcott, who still possesses one of the best names in Blue Jackets history. The longtime blueliner not only took a franchise record amount of penalty minutes in a game, he 29 of them all at the same time as part of a scrap with Jamal Mayers. The full tally: 10 minutes for a game misconduct, 10 for an instigator misconduct, five or fighting, two for being an instigator and two more for something listed as "instigator - face shield" in the box score. What was the instigating, you may ask? Going after Mayers for a hit on Sergei Fedorov. You know what, let's just go to the video tape on this one.
That, apparently, is how you set a franchise record for penalty minutes in a game. Who knew?
Most ice time (Regulation): 34:59 for Jack Johnson on Feb. 2, 2013, vs. Detroit. Well, we always knew Jack was quite an athlete, but this is insane. We've seen defensemen check in near 30 minutes per game, and some might even go over at times, but to play almost 35 minutes of a 60-minute game is pretty nuts, especially when it's a game the Jackets won 4-2. In fact, that total was the most in a 60-minute NHL game in five years, so this was pretty unique. Also deserving of a shoutout is Ray Whitney, as the Wizard owns the ice time record for a Blue Jackets forward in a regulation game. Whitney played 27:19 in a game against Phoenix on Oct. 14, 2002, but the Coyotes were able to earn a 3-2 win.
Most saves: 52 by Sergei Bobrovsky on Dec. 4, 2014, vs. Florida. Hey, why not, right? Bob owns just about every Blue Jackets record in the book, so if course he'd own the record for saves in a game. And this isn't even accounting the fact the game went to a shootout, so he had to work even extra time to earn the Jackets a 4-3 win. That means the Panthers put 55 shots on goal in the game. ''I can't remember most of the shots,'' Bobrovsky said afterward. ''We're happy to get the two points. It's important for us.'' One year after making the playoffs, Columbus wouldn't return to the postseason, but this was a big night for Bob nonetheless. Now let's hope he doesn't have to approach this total anytime in the near future.
Just for fun, I found a couple of interesting streak notes in the media guide as well...
Most consecutive games with even or plus rating: 27 by Jody Shelley from Oct. 14, 2002 through Dec. 19. Wait, what? How is this even possible? Well, we'll be honest. Jody didn't exactly, um, play a lot of minutes back in the day. During that historic run, Shelley averaged 5:07 minutes of ice time per game and racked up 103 penalty minutes in that time – an average of 3.8 penalty minutes per game (or 3:49 on the game clock). Jody, of course, was and is the best. He also chipped in a goal and two assists during that streak and finished exactly plus-4. How about that?
Most consecutive games penalized: 11 by Ole-Kristian Tollefson from Jan. 24-Feb. 29, 2008. Props for doing this in a leap year, right? But seriously, 11 consecutive games (with a total of 35 PIM) with a penalty is impressive. Or perhaps the opposite. Hard to tell. This is another from a list of great Blue Jackets names, but I will point out defenseman Zach Werenski has a grand total of 20 penalty minutes in 108 career games, a figure that speaks to how great Werenski is and how – well, however you want to slice it – Tollefson's record checks in.
