The weekend had everything.
Spencer Martin earned his first win as a Blue Jacket, stopping 36 saves, the third-most in his career, in the 3-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Friday.
Patrik Laine was victimized on a late, cheap, open-ice hit as the final horn expired. Laine did not make the trip to Minnesota for Saturday's game. Rasmus Andersson was suspended four games for the offense as we await word on Laine's status moving forward.
Laine has dealt with injuries each of the last few seasons. Hopefully, he's avoided anything serious, and while he is considered day-to-day, upper-body hits targeting the head are never ideal and always deserve careful attention.
Elvis Merzlikins returned to action post-flu on Saturday against the Wild and picked up his first win.
The Jackets had 54 shots on goal as the offense, led by early goals from Justin Danforth and Kent Johnson, staked Columbus to a 2-0 lead. The team battled back down 3-2 after Minnesota scored twice, 54 seconds apart in the second period, getting a goal from Boone Jenner and taking the lead on Adam Fantilli's first career goal on the power play in the third period. Then they staved off the Wild's rally to persevere in overtime with Jack Roslovic's game-winner.
#CBJ with 85 shot attempts tonight, which is the most of any game the past three seasons. 50 of those are on goal. Will do the final math on all this postgame.
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) October 22, 2023
#CBJ finished tonight with 54 shots on goal, tied for the fourth-most in a regular-season game in team history. Just the 10th game in franchise regular-season history with at least 50 shots on goal.
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) October 22, 2023
Columbus’ 54 shots on goal are the most they’ve had in a game since February 16th, 2020 — a span of 1,343 days.
— CBJ Stats (@BlueJacketStats) October 22, 2023
That same game was also the last time that the #CBJ outshot their opponent by 25+ shots on goal.
The Blue Jackets are 3-2-0 on the young season and over .500 for the first time since Apr. 16, 2021. Danforth has picked up where he left off, finding his key scoring touch and providing a little bit of everything.
On Friday night, Danforth recorded his first career multi-point game with one goal and one assist. Now he's entering Tuesday's tilt against the Anaheim Ducks with a two-game point streak as he's second on the club with three goals.
Jenner leads the team with four goals and had quite the night on Saturday with 17 wins in the face-off circle, eight shots on net, and five blocked shots. His goal gave him 334 points (174 goals, 160 assists) for his career, tying him with Nick Foligno for third on the franchise's all-time points list.
Outside of Adam Fantilli, some notable #CBJ performances last night:
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) October 22, 2023
Jack Roslovic: 8 SOG, game-winning goal
Boone Jenner: 8 SOG, goal, won 17 of 21 faceoffs, 5 blocked shots
Johnny Gaudreau: 7 SOG, assist
Erik Gudbranson: 8 blocked shots
Vincent has been dead set on changing the culture and setting the foundation. He talked about it last Wednesday during his weekly radio hit with 97.1 FM's Morning Juice with Brandon Beam and Bobby Carpenter.
"The way we're going to play demands a lot of energy," Vincent said before Saturday's game. "We're asking our players to make the right choices away from the rink because that kind of game we saw (Friday night), that's going to be our staple. That's how we need to play consistently."
Saturday night represented early season challenges.
It was the first road test, first back-to-back, and Merzlikins' first game in a week. How would the team respond after a win the night before, which ended on an emotional note following the loss to Laine and the team then missing one of its best players?
While Columbus played well for one period on Oct. 16 against the Detroit Red Wings, the team couldn't weather the storm over the final 40 minutes. If things didn't go well on Saturday, many could have brushed off that game as a schedule loss, considering the back-to-back opportunity and salvage being happy with a split. Maybe more so if the team competed hard for 60 minutes.
Not only did they compete, stave off challenges to missing Laine, battle back to tie, take the lead, and then cap off the overtime winner, Columbus skated away with two huge points and four for the weekend.
Vincent is trying to mold the mindset of his young team and figure out the right buttons to push and when to push them. It looks like the team bought into this mentality following a bad loss to Detroit.
The response rewarded them with huge wins. Now, they have to find consistency.
