Game Day #17: Tarasov In Net As Blue Jackets Battle League-Worst Canadiens North Of The Border

The Columbus Blue Jackets let the October version of themselves show Friday night, dominating the Pittsburgh Penguins in a 6-2 win for their first victory of November.

When they face the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night in their first trip to Canada of the 2024-25 season, they'll look to make it two in a row in the win column.

Six goals isn't uncommon for the Blue Jackets this season: it's the fifth time they've scored a half dozen in 16 games. But it had seemed like much longer, as Columbus was held to two or fewer goals in seven straight games (1-5-1) prior to Friday's offensive rebirth.

So which team is the real team? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but head coach Dean Evason was pleased with Friday's efforts and hopes it can be the starting point of a cleaner version of a Blue Jacket team that have been undone by short bursts of bad play throughout the now-snapped losing streak.

"It was important that we played how we played," said Evason. "We're going to make mistakes again for sure but we don't want to continually make the same ones."

With minimal mistakes Saturday, the Blue Jackets have a good chance at another win: the Canadiens are the worst team in the NHL by points and point percentage, and also rank last in the league in goals against per game (4.06). 

Here's what else to know as the Blue Jackets look for consecutive wins: 

• The line of Zach Aston-Reese, Sean Kuraly, and Kevin Labanc are finding chemistry with each other. They're a "fourth line" in name only, playing third-line minutes on most nights and scoring at rates even better than that. The trio have combined for eight points (including three goals) in the last two games.
   
• One area to watch Montreal: special teams. They have a top-ten power play that is converting at 22.0%, so staying out of the box is a significant key to victory.
   
• With Dante Fabbro playing alongside Zach Werenski on the top defensive pairing, the duo of Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson have been joined together on the second pairing in each of the last two games. In Friday's game, they were the best pairing on the ice for either team. 
   
• When you score six goals and allow only two to a team with a pair of future first-ballot Hall of Famers, you don't change much for the next game. Skaters are the same and lines will start the same as well. The only change is between the pipes, where Daniil Tarasov gets the start on the second half of the back-to-back. Here are the full lineups: