*Photo from the San Diego Union Tribune*
All good things must come to an end. Johnny Gaudreau had two assists, Jack Roslovic had a goal and an assist, and the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the New York Rangers with a 4-2 victory on Sunday night in Columbus.
The Blue Jackets ended their 3 game losing streak at home and had lost 4 of their last 6 games before this win, ending the Rangers 10 game winning streak in the process. Kirill Marchenko and Roslovic each had a goal and an assist to go with Gaudreau's two point game.
Blue Jackets head coach Pascal Vincent said after the game that "We are growing. We just learn from the past. We've had more success recently. There is more confidence. It's a team that is learning and tonight was the result of those setbacks. Hopefully we're going to keep growing. We locked it down in the third and it was good to see."
Dmitri Voronkov started the scoring for the Blue Jackets, giving them a 1-0 lead with a power play goal 4:34 into the game. Artemi Panarin tied the game 1-1 with his 33rd goal of the season as Adam Fox got the lone assist. Marchenko scored just 18 seconds into the second period to give the Blue Jackets a 2-1 lead on his 17th goal of the season.
Adam Edstrom scored at the 11:11 mark of the second period for the Rangers, tying the game 2-2 on his second goal of the season. Roslovic gave the Blue Jackets a 3-2 lead just 46 seconds after Edstrom's goal, assisted by Gaudreau. With 1:25 left in the period, Gaudreau and Roslovic assisted on Ivan Provorov's 5th goal of the season to make it a 4-2 game.
Roslovic said of the win that "Personally, I don’t think the first was all that great, but we stepped up in the second and did the job tonight. You’ve got to tip your hats to Elvis at the end. Huge win, snaps a team’s 10 game winning streak and finish out the game in the third."
Getting the start between the pipes for the Blue Jackets was Elvis Merzlikins, improving his record to 11-12-7 in 32 starts with the win. Merzlikins stopped 38 of the 40 shots he faced from the Rangers, good for a strong .950 save percentage.
In net for the Rangers on the other end of the ice was Jonathan Quick, who had a down game as a loss dropped his record to 13-5-2 in 20 starts. Quick turned aside 37 out of the 41 shots on goal the Blue Jackets had, giving him a .902 save percentage.
Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said of the loss that "We needed to win tonight. There’s no excuses with the schedule. Everybody catches back-to-backs. I expect us to handle that, and tonight it wasn’t our best. We’ll learn from it."
The two teams face off again on Wednesday night in New York as they complete a home and home series. Merzlikins is likely to start for the Blue Jackets while Igor Shesterkin is the expected starter for the Rangers.
Comments
Post a Comment