Roslovic scores in OT, Blue Jackets recover to defeat Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Jack Roslovic scored at 3:07 of overtime, and the Columbus Blue Jackets recovered for a 5-4 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

Roslovic won it when he skated with the puck from the Blue Jackets end, eluded two defenders and scored with a wrist shot from the edge of the right face-off circle.

“Never say die, that kind of was a little bit of our motto last year,” Roslovic said. “I think we still have a lot of that in our culture here.”

Adam Fantilli scored his first NHL goal, and Justin Danforth had a goal and an assist for Columbus (3-2-0), which won 3-1 against the Calgary Flames on Friday. Elvis Merzlikins, who missed the previous two games with an illness, made 24 saves.

“Nice to win back to back,” Blue Jackets coach Pascal Vincent said. “The way we played we deserved that win. We played really well, really connected, really intense.

“No game is perfect. We’re going to make mistakes, but the mindset was perfect. I’m looking for excellence, and what I mean by excellence is working hard. We did that tonight.”

Filip Gustavsson made 49 saves, and Marcus Johansson and Dakota Mermis each had a goal and an assist for Minnesota (2-2-1), which has lost two in a row and three of four. Joel Eriksson Ek had two assists.

The Blue Jackets outshot the Wild 54-28.

“We weren’t good defensively,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We weren't good in the game. We didn't execute defensively. We didn't execute getting out of our zone. So, yeah, we didn't do a lot of good things in this game and yet we still had an opportunity in it, which was positive. But we've got to clean a lot of our hockey up.”

Fantilli, the No. 3 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, scored on a wrist shot over Gustavsson’s glove on the power play at 14:41 of the third period to give Columbus a 4-3 lead.

“Obviously, it feels great; it’s every kid’s dream to get their first NHL goal,” Fantilli said. “But to be honest, I was really happy with the way I was playing away from the puck as well to that point. I was just working hard [and] knew it would happen at some point, so I’m happy I got one tonight.”

Johansson tied it 4-4 with a wrist shot from the left circle at 17:01.

Danforth made it 1-0 at 8:55 of the first period, getting his own rebound after Gustavsson stopped his initial deflection from point-blank range.

Kent Johnson gave the Blue Jackets a 2-0 lead at 6:10 of the second period. Cole Sillinger won the face-off from the right dot back to Johnson for a one-timer for his first goal of the season.

Mermis responded at 7:21 to cut it to 2-1 with a snap shot through traffic.

Mats Zuccarello tied it 2-2 just 54 seconds later at 8:15 with a snap shot following a backhand pass from Ryan Hartman. It was his first goal of the season.

Columbus outshot Minnesota 22-6 in the second period.

“Obviously, [Gustavsson] made some big stops and a lot of stops,” Johansson said. “He played great. It’s up to us to play better in front of him and score more goals if we need to.”

Jonas Brodin scored his first goal of the season at 4:42 of the third period with a shot off Merzilkins’ blocker to give the Wild a 3-2 lead.

Boone Jenner took a backhand pass from Zach Werenski in the slot to make it 3-3 at 7:36.

Zuccarello appeared to put the Wild ahead 4-3 at 11:54, but the Blue Jackets successfully changed Johansson preceded the puck into the offensive zone.

“Anything can happen in OT, but I think it [stinks] that we got that power play goal called off,” Zuccarello said. “And they get a goal right after. We came back, we fought back, but at the end of the day they made it hard for us. And in our zone, we weren’t good enough.”

Jenner had eight shots on goal, five blocked shots and won 17 of 21 face-offs (81 percent) in 22:46 of ice time.

“We thought we were working for our chances with our forecheck, paying to our strengths a little bit more in their zone,” said Jenner, the Blue Jackets captain. “Obviously, some good looks. … We know if we do the right things, the rest is going to come into play.”

NOTES: Fantilli is the second-youngest player in Blue Jackets history to score in his first career road game (Rostislav Klesla, (18 years, 205 days on Oct. 12, 2000). … Columbus forward Johnny Gaudreau had the assist on Roslovic’s goal and has 36 overtime points in his career, which trails Sidney Crosby (43), Alex Ovechkin (38), Evgeni Malkin (38) and Patrik Elias (37) for the most in NHL history. … Zuccarello extended his season-opening point streak to five games for the second time in as many years. He became the first player in Wild history with multiple runs of at least that length.