PREVIEW: Blue Jackets, Habs set for Wednesday night hockey

The Blue Jackets found themselves in the lead in the third period during both games of their recent back-to-back, but unlike Sunday night, they were able to find a way to hold their lead and come out on top on Monday.

After giving up three goals in the last 10 minutes in a tough loss at Carolina, the Jackets had a much better finish at home against Boston, getting a power-play goal to extend their lead and going on to finish off a 5-2 victory at Nationwide Arena.

It was the continuation of some good trends for the Blue Jackets. After dropping nine games in a row earlier this month, Columbus has now won three of four, and the players and coaches had a lot of positive takeaways from the Boston game that they hope to carry over to tonight when they host Montreal.

“I like our response,” Ivan Provorov said after the bounce-back win against the Bruins. “We responded the right way, and I think tonight we played even better.”

“Our game is a complete game as a team. We’re fast, we’re physical, we’re able to make plays. But I think our decision-making tonight was great. When we had room and time, we were able to make plays, and when there’s nothing, we are putting the puck deep and forechecking and getting the puck back that way.”

Provorov was one of four Russians to score against Boston, marking the first time in NHL history four different players from the country on the same team have scored in a game.

Columbus hopes to carry that momentum forward, and head coach Pascal Vincent said he’s starting to see some consistency out of his team.

“I am and I’m not,” head coach Pascal Vincent said postgame when asked about how surprised he was with the response from his team. “Carolina is a real good hockey team, and we played with those guys for two periods. We just didn’t manage that sequence. It was three plays. But the intensity I’ve seen from those guys and the way we’ve been playing for quite some time now is impressive. But I’m not surprised.

"I’m not surprised that they came together today with the way they played. And everyone chipped in. Everybody had a good game. We played really well as a team. And our goalie was really good when we needed him to be.

“These are the guys we have. They are good people, and they want to be here. They want to do well.”

Know The Foe: Montreal Canadiens

Head coach: Martin St. Louis (third season)

Team stats: Goals per game: 2.71 (28th) | Scoring defense: 3.48 (25th) | PP: 18.0 percent (23rd) | PK: 73.5 percent (27th)

The narrative: The Canadiens have flipped into a rebuilding mode after the team’s surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final in the shortened 2021 COVID season. The team has committed to a youth movement and is building under St. Louis around first-round picks Juraj Slafkovsky (the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft), Alex Newhook, Cole Caufield, Justin Barron and Kaiden Guhle, all of whom are 23 or younger. Captain Nick Suzuki, still just 24, also is still blossoming into his own.

Team leaders: Caufield has become one of the more dangerous forwards in the league and matches Suzuki at the top of the team’s scoring chart with a 6-11-17 line. Defenseman Mike Matheson is having an impactful season as he’s third on the squad with 15 points (five goals, 10 assists), while Sean Monahan (6-7-13) and Newhook (6-6-12) are the only other players in double digits in scoring on the squad.

In net, the squad is carrying three goals in Sam Montembeault, Jake Allen and Cayden Primeau. The top two have each appeared in nine games, with Montembeault posting a 4-3-1 record, 2.81 GAA and .908 save percentage. Allen is 3-5-1 with a 3.59 GAA and .903 save percentage.

What's new: Injuries have been a major problem for the Habs this season, as the team is without forwards Kirby Dach and Rafael Harvey-Pinard as well as defensemen Jordan Harris, David Savard, Chris Wideman and Arber Xhekaj. Montreal is at the end of a long road trip in which the team did win two of three in California, but overall the Canadiens are 4-8-1 in their last 13 games while allowing seven power-play goals in the last 17 chances.

Trending: Montreal captured the first game of the series, downing Columbus by a 4-3 score in overtime Oct. 26 at Centre Bell on Caufield’s winner. Columbus won just one of the three matchups a year ago – a 6-4 home matchup in November – after going 12-4-2 in the series the previous seven seasons.

Former CBJ: Josh Anderson has no goals and two assists in the first 21 games, while Savard is on injured reserve with a broken hand.

Roster Report

Projected Lineup (subject to change)

Johnny Gaudreau – Boone Jenner – Kirill Marchenko
Alexandre Texier – Adam Fantilli – Patrik Laine
Dmitri Voronkov – Cole Sillinger – Yegor Chinakhov
Eric Robinson – Sean Kuraly – Justin Danforth
Zach Werenski – Adam Boqvist
Ivan Provorov – David Jiricek
Jake Bean – Erik Gudbranson
Elvis Merzlikins
Spencer Martin

Scratches: Mathieu Olivier, Andrew Peeke, Damon Severson (out approximately six weeks with an oblique injury as of Nov. 21)

Injured reserve/Injured Non-Roster: Jack Roslovic (fractured ankle, out four to six weeks as of Nov. 13); Daniil Tarasov (knee, week to week)

Roster Report: The Blue Jackets will keep the skater lineup the same while Merzlikins goes into the net after Martin got the win Monday vs. Boston.

3 Stats to Know

• The Blue Jackets are the only team in the NHL with two rookies who have at least 10 points in Adam Fantilli (4-6-10) and Dmitri Voronkov (4-6-10), as the two are tied for seventh in rookie scoring in the league.
• While joining countrymen Voronkov, Ivan Provorov and Yegor Chinakhov in scoring Monday, Kirill Marchenko notched his seventh goal in the last 14 games.
• Milestone watch: Gaudreau is six points from 700 for his NHL career (234-460-694, 705 GP).

Who’s Hot

Johnny Gaudreau has notched two goals and three assists in the last six games, while Boone Jenner has four goals in the last five games. … Zach Werenski has 10 assists in November, tied for the most ever for a Blue Jackets defenseman in a month. He’s also tied for eighth among NHL blueliners with 14 assists on the season. … Boone Jenner has 11 goals in the first 23 games of the season for the third time in his career (also 2015-16, 2021-22). … Columbus ranks first in the NHL penalty kill percentage since Oct. 20, killing off 50 of 54 (92.6 percent) power-play chances over the last 20 games. … The Blue Jackets have 56 points from defensemen this season, good for fifth in the league.

This Day in CBJ History

Nov. 29, 2005: The Blue Jackets claim defenseman Ron Hainsey off waivers from Montreal. Hainsey would go on to post 19 goals and 83 points in 213 games with Columbus in three seasons.

Nov. 29, 2006: Columbus acquires Derrick Walser in a trade with Carolina, bringing the defenseman back for a second stint with the team after he skated in 82 games from 2001-04. Walser becomes at the time the fourth player to return to the club after leaving, following in the footsteps of forward Geoff Sanderson and defensemen Anders Eriksson and Jamie Pushor.

Nov. 29, 2016: Columbus posts a 5-1 home victory against Tampa Bay, a harbinger of good things to come. The Blue Jackets would go on to win 16 contests in a row through Jan. 3, 2017, a franchise record and the second-longest winning streak in NHL history.

Nov. 29, 2019: Gustav Nyquist notches the first hat trick of his Blue Jackets career, pacing Columbus to a 5-2 win at Nationwide Arena against Pittsburgh.

Jeff Svoboda contributed to this story.