*Photo from Norman Transcript*
Outside of baseball, it was a special night in the city that never sleeps. Zach Werenski scored, Jack Roslovic and Liam Foudy had two assists, and the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the New York Rangers with a 5-1 victory on Sunday afternoon in Manhattan.
The Blue Jackets are still under .500, with the win moving their record to 3-4-0 to begin the season, but no one was expecting them to be world beaters. Foudy, Roslovic, and Jakub Voracek all had two assists for the Jackets, while 5 different skaters recorded goals.
Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner said of the win that "We had to learn from last night and we were in the same position tonight, up a couple goals. And now we're on the other side of it. Keep playing. You do that and you're going to get some more chances. I think that's why we got a couple late."
Only one goal came in the first period, and it was Werenski who did it, scoring with 2:06 left in the period to make it 1-0. Early in the second period, Andrew Peeke doubled the Blue Jackets lead, scoring 1:42 into the second to make it a 2-0 score. Yegor Chinakhov scored to make it 3-0 before Artemi Panarin scored for the Rangers, cutting the deficit to 3-1 after two periods.
In the 3rd period, the Blue Jackets kept adding to their lead. Eric Robinson picked up his first goal of the season 14:13 into the final frame, assisted by Erik Gudbranson and Sean Kuraly to make it a 4-1 game. Just 44 seconds later, Kent Johnson scored his second goal to make it a 5-1 score, with assists from Voracek and Roslovic.
Getting the start in goal for the Blue Jackets was Daniil Tarasov, on the roster with Joonas Korpisalo on IR. Tarasov picked up his first NHL win to improve his record to 1-2-0 this season. Tarasov made 30 saves on 31 shots the Rangers sent at him, recording a .968 save percentage in the win.
Tarasov said of his first win that "It was amazing. For me, special. Guys helped me a lot. I will say how I said in the locker room in my speech, today was a winning mentality for the whole team. We were just focusing on our game, to play our best hockey. We did it."
It was backup Jaroslav Halak who started for the Rangers, taking the loss as his record dropped to 0-2-0 to open the season. Halak turned aside only 16 out of the 21 shots the Blue Jackets had, which was good for only a .762 save percentage.
Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant said that the team was "Not good enough, obviously. We were far from good enough. We were slow. I didn't like the way we played. I like our team being an aggressive forechecking team. I didn't see much of that. I thought we were a step behind all night from a team that played back-to-back games. Disappointed with that. The speed of our game wasn't good."
Up next, the Blue Jackets get back in action with a Tuesday night home game against the Arizona Coyotes, with Elvis Merzlikins the probable starter. Igor Shesterkin is the likely starter for the Rangers as they host the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night.
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