En fuego.
In March, we talked about Jack Roslovic and how he might be on the upswing. If he was on the upswing then, he's absolutely on fire now.
Following Roslovic's second career hat trick, and first in a Columbus Blue Jackets sweater on Saturday, Apr. 9—also his 300th career game—during the Blue Jackets' 5-4 overtime win at the Detroit Red Wings, the Ohio native followed that up at home on Wednesday night against the Montreal Canadiens with two more goals in the 5-1 win.
How can you explain it?
"Just the way it's playing out," Roslovic said. "When you're hot, you're hot."
With five goals (six points) over his last two games, and with suddenly 17 goals on the season to go with 21 assists, Roslovic's stat line is probably about where everyone pegged him for the season.
It just took a while to get here.
After a slow start to the season—five goals in the first 28 games of the season—we looked at other ways he was contributing to the team.
His face-off percentage (43.5%) is higher than last year (39.1%), and while it's not always going to be the obvious goals and points that stick out on the scoresheet, we know that part of Roslovic's game was supposed to be what he can provide offensively.
Thanks in part to the last two games, Roslovic can boast about a new career-high with 17 goals, 38 points, and he's one assist shy of tying his career marker of 22.
"Sometimes you get the bounces, right?" head coach Brad Larsen said. "The first goal, I'm sure their goalie would like it back, but shoot the puck, that's what we're talking about.
"Go to the right areas and you get rewarded and sometimes when you're feeling it, that's what happens. Great to see him get on the board for us for another couple and hopefully keep riding that often."
Roslovic knew what was needed of him and the work that went into his development seems to be paying dividends now.
"I think he's concentrated on being a better well-rounded center," Larsen said. "We know he's got skill...he's got dynamite skill. In the (offensive) zone he's lethal. But there (are) areas of game he had to work on.
"To me the tipping point was Calgary. From that point on, he had a really good stretch of about a month. He knows it's important for him to grow and it's earning him more ice-time."
We've said it so many times before that when guys go down, someone has to step up. Roslovic has been able to use this time in getting top-six minutes to show what he has to offer.
"Obviously, you don't want to see guys go down," Roslovic said. "It's good to see we have guys on our team who can take some bigger roles and succeed.
"I think my game this year, maybe offensively, it's not what it could be, but I think defensively it's been world's better just in the past couple months.
"I've been extremely happy with that and to see it keep on getting better, it's definitely something I hang my hat on."
Per Hockey Reference, Roslovic is fifth on the Blue Jackets with a defensive point share (an estimate of the number of points contributed by a player due to his defense) of 1.1. Since Feb. 1, Natural Stat Trick has Roslovic's xGA/60 at 2.72, better than the 2.91 it was from the beginning of the season through then.
Roslovic and the Blue Jackets are heading out west to battle the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday from Crypto.com Arena starting at 10:30 pm ET.
