Another hard-scoring game to come by. For either team.
Aleksander Barkov scored 29 seconds into overtime to lift the Florida Panthers over the Columbus Blue Jackets 1-0 on Thursday at Nationwide Arena. Sergei Bobrovsky made 25 saves for his fifth shutout and 29th of his career.
Columbus has lost five straight and has been shut out in three of their last four games. They’ve been shut out in consecutive games by the Panthers, who beat the Blue Jackets 3-0 in Sunrise on Mar. 6.
Goaltending Duel
The Blue Jackets came into the game with one goal in the last nine periods of play. Even though Columbus only tallied one in Monday’s 2-1 loss to the Devils, they peppered Jake Allen with 46 shots and had a 5v5 80-38 shot attempt advantage.
Hoping the offense could finally break through, instead, it was hard to score for either the Panthers or Blue Jackets on Thursday.
Scoreless through 60 minutes, Bobrovsky and Elvis Merzlikins each held high-offensive talent at bay until overtime when Florida won 29 seconds in on the power play. Barkov got his 29th. Seth Jones had his 22nd assist and Sam Reinhart had his 40th.
The Panthers' power play spilled over from the third period at 19:30 when Kirill Marchenko got two minutes for a delay of game.
Merzlikins Returns With Vengeance
Big dad energy?
Merzlikins made his first start since last Thursday after he and his wife welcomed their second child into the world on Monday.
Then he did everything possible to shut down the defending Stanley Cup champions.
He made 27 saves and was the game's second star. The Panthers put up 3.16 goals for per game while the Jackets put up 3.15 goals for per game on the season, good for 10th and 11th in the league. On the road, Florida puts up 3.17 goals per game, which is eighth in the NHL.
Can’t Buy A Goal
The Blue Jackets went 0-3-1 on their four-game homestand, scoring one goal in the four games.
Boone Jenner had a goal waived off in the third period after the Panthers won a successful challenge for kicking the puck in.
The recent stretch of play is reminiscent of a six-game losing streak in early November in which the Jackets struggled to score more than two goals a game before breaking out against the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 6-2 win in Columbus on Nov. 15.
They’ll test that theory Friday night in Pittsburgh, where the Jackets ended their long losing streak to the Penguins on Jan. 7 in a 4-3 shootout victory to break a 0-10-15 drought in the Steel City. Columbus is 2-0-0 against Pittsburgh this season, winning their first season series over the Penguins since 2016-17.
Per Natural Stat Trick, the Jackets had the 5v5 edge in shot attempts 65-58 and in all situations 75-68 against Florida on Thursday.
#CBJ head coach Dean Evason postgame: "We're not happy in that dressing room. There's no like, 'Oh, good, we played great against the Stanley Cup champions.' We're pissed. But did we do the right things to obviously get a point? Did we catch a bad break trying to do the right
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) March 21, 2025
The Jackets earned a critical point and received some help from around the league. The New York Rangers lost 4-3 to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The New Jersey Devils lost 5-3 to the Calgary Flames. The New York Islanders beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 in overtime. The Ottawa Senators lost 5-1 to the Colorado Avalanche. Columbus remains three points out of a playoff spot, with the Rangers and Islanders one point ahead.
Biggest Road Test Yet
In the NHL’s only game, the Blue Jackets travel to take on the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena on Friday, Mar. 21 at 7 p.m. ET.
