Sergei Bobrovsky’s finest stop of the night was a glove-handed robbery of JT Brown just 4:13 into the third period. The bad news (at least for Tuesday), is that it was the last save he made in the game.
The only damper on a hard-fought, 1-0 Blue Jackets victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning was Bobrovsky’s apparent lower-body injury suffered on the play. While there was no contact made, Bobrovsky remained on the ice in pain and had to helped off the ice by the Blue Jackets athletic training staff and two of his teammates. Curtis McElhinney, fresh off a 33-save effort in Boston on Saturday but pretty comfortable since the pre-game warmup tonight, had less than a minute to get his gear on and enter the game.
It was a tough spot in what coach Todd Richards called “a really, really big game” for the Blue Jackets, but the veteran netminder stepped in and stepped up when his team needed him.
McElhinney made a pair of top-notch stops – including a side-to-side sliding stop on Martin St. Louis late in regulation – preserve the victory and earn a team shutout for the Blue Jackets. He stopped all eight shots he faced in a third period that featured several prolonged spurts by the Lightning, who were frustrated all night long by the Blue Jackets’ forecheck and persistent defending.
There was one goal scored in the game, and it was a beauty: Nick Foligno’s seventh of the season was scored on a nifty between-the-legs dangle, all set up by a timely steal by Ryan Johansen late in a shift. Foligno cut back to the middle, seemingly ran out of room, but pulled the stick between his legs and fired the puck back to the other side of the net.
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