John Tortorella has been around long enough to know that, over the course of an 82-game schedule, there are going to be lapses and tests.
He wants his team to win every game, making him no different from any other coach, but he was waiting for the Blue Jackets to be challenged in a third period like they were Sunday afternoon in Vancouver. At the end of a long road trip and desperately wanting to finish it off with a 3-0-0 record, the Canucks became the first team in eight games to score a third-period goal against them.
And they didn’t just score one – they scored three.
With a 2-0 lead going into the third period, where they’ve been so dominant, the Blue Jackets saw their lead dissipate quickly and fell into a 2-2 tie late in regulation. Brandon Saad’s go-ahead goal with 4:39 left looked like it would seal the deal, but Jannik Hansen used a fortuitous deflection with the goaltender pulled to tie the game and force overtime.
Columbus needed one good chance, and it was a 2-on-1 with Cam Atkinson down the left side and Seth Jones roaring down the right. Atkinson slipped a pass to Jones at the moment of truth, and Jones redirected the puck through Ryan Miller’s pads to send the Blue Jackets home with their ninth straight win to tie the franchise record.
Happy 500th, Torts.
“This isn’t a bad thing for us to have happen right now – we haven’t had much adversity (in the third period), mostly because of our play,” Tortorella said. “I don’t think we bent at all. I think it forced us to attack even more.”
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