On a night when both the Blue Jackets and Chicago Blackhawks traded momentum like it was the floor of the stock exchange, a rocking crowd of 15,009 at Nationwide Arena took it all in and loved every second of it — especially in what was one of the more entertaining overtime periods we’ve seen in a while. The end result, however, was a 2-1 shootout loss for Columbus Thursday, but it extended their points streak to a franchise-record nine consecutive games, breaking the previous record set Jan. 15 to Feb. 6, 2001.
And Sergei Bobrovsky – who was named the No. 1 star of the game for the fourth straight night on home ice – nearly stole it for Columbus. He made 39 saves (equaling a season-high) but none was better than his overtime robbery of Dave Bolland, who looked to have the game on his stick and a wide open cage. Bobrovsky dove back and smothered the shot, saving the winning tally and bringing the Blue Jacket faithful to their feet.
It took a while for the pace to really pick up in this game, but once it did, there was a playoff-like intensity and competitive level to this game that had the arena buzzing. The second period was a back-and-forth, ragged at times 20 minutes where both clubs had chances to break through, and in the latter stages, it was Chicago that drew first blood in the final edition of this divisional showdown.
Patrick Kane, in his one his few visible moments in regulation and overtime, saucered a perfect pass across the zone to Johnny Oduya, who cut to the net and snapped a quick shot over Bobrovsky’s glove at 16:54 of the middle period. The lead lasted just 42 seconds though, as the Blue Jackets went to the power play shortly after the Oduya tally.
Brandon Dubinsky won a face-off cleanly to Derick Brassard, who left the puck on a tee for Jack Johnson. Much like he did last weekend against the Red Wings, Johnson rocketed a slap shot over Corey Crawford to tie things up at 1-1.
The overtime was worth the price of admission alone: up and down the rink they went, with several scoring chances and near misses — including a would-be goal of the year candidate from Nick Foligno that scraped the outside of the post after a nasty series of stickhandling maneuvers.
Jonathan Toews and Kane scored in the shootout to give the Blackhawks the extra point.
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