The Blue Jackets have scored a lot of goals this year already, but if you’re looking for an example of how they want to play the game, the last one would be the one to watch.
Columbus already had a 5-3 lead on Buffalo in the third period of Thursday night’s game before sealing the game with a play where teamwork, scheme and intelligence made the difference.
As Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin tried to skate up the right wall and get the puck out of his zone, Kirill Marchenko continued to hound him with his stick as he neared the blue line. Center Sean Monahan then converged on Dahlin as the defenseman neared the blue line, blocking the nearest route of escape and pinning Dahlin along the wall with few options.
As Monahan got his stick on the puck to poke it away from Dahlin, the two fell to the ice, leaving Marchenko as the lone man to play the puck. As Marchenko skated the puck along the wall deeper in the zone, CBJ defenseman Damon Severson – who started the play on the far side of the red line – read it perfectly, immediately hitting the jets and racing into the offensive zone.
Severson got a step ahead of Buffalo’s Tage Thompson as he skated across the blue line, and from there, it was pretty simple. Marchenko pulled up to a stop along the wall to hold defenseman Owen Power, then centered a pass right onto the stick of Severson for a redirection past goalie Devon Levi.
The combination of being in the right positions, the forwards’ forecheck and Severson’s ability to read the play and jump into it are all things the Blue Jackets have stressed in the early going.
“It shows our commitment to work,” head coach Dean Evason said. “You see a team track as hard as they go forward, it’s a positive thing. If you watch that goal, you watch where Sevy is, you watch where Z is the other defenseman, and then there was a forward. We all worked hard to get back on the proper side, which we were. If they were to collect the puck, we could have stepped on them and tried to get stick to puck to defend.
“But once we turned the puck over with that great track, now Sevy is right with that guy. He's actually behind him. And now once that puck gets turned over, he has full reign to go. That’s what we’re trying to stress to the group that as long as you’re in the right position, you can go. By all means, we want Sevy to go. Get on your horse, and he did.”
Being able to pressure teams into mistakes and then take advantage, all while playing smart, positional hockey, is one reason the Jackets are off to a historic start offensively. The Blue Jackets have scored a franchise-high 17 goals through the first four games of the season, surpassing 14 goals recorded in the 2018-19 and 2021-22 campaigns.
And they know they can keep it going if they just continue to play the correct way.
“We’re just trying to be aggressive,” Severson said. “If we’re going to make mistakes, we’d rather it be an aggressive mistake than sitting back and letting them take it to us. If we see an opportunity to go on a forecheck or somebody maybe in a little bit of trouble in an awkward position, you go on that forecheck and you pressure them.
“That (goal) was a situation where they did a good job as forwards and turned the puck over, and I was just the benefactor of jumping in the right play at the right time.”
Know The Foe: Minnesota Wild
Head coach: John Hynes (Second season)
Team stats (2023-24): Goals per game: 3.02 (21st) | Scoring defense: 3.17 (20th) | PP: 22.7 percent (10th) | PK: 74.5 percent (30th)
The narrative: After Minnesota made the playoffs 11 out of 12 previous seasons, a slow start doomed the Wild last year to a spring without postseason hockey, as the team’s 39-34-9 record left the squad 11 points shy of a berth. The hope is the second year under Hynes will lead to success, with the team building around such names as star Kirill Kaprizov and young standouts Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Brock Faber.
Team leaders: Kaprizov had another excellent season, as the Russian wing tied for eighth in the NHL with 46 goals and added 50 assists for 96 points, 11th in the league. Boldy’s age 22 season was an impressive one, as he placed second on the squad with 69 points (29 goals, 40 assists). Joel Eriksson Ek added a career-high 30 goals, while Faber had eight goals and 47 points on the way to placing second in the Calder Trophy voting. Rossi is also a name to know after posting 21 goals and 40 points in his first full NHL campaign.
In net, Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury return after splitting duties. Gustavsson started a team-high 43 contests and went 20-18-4 with a 3.06 GAA and .899 save percentage, while Fleury’s 20th NHL season featured 36 starts, a 17-15-5 record, a 2.98 GAA and .895 save percentage.
What's new: Minnesota added forwards Yakov Trenin and Jakub Lauko in the offseason to the bottom six, while young forwards Marat Khusnutdinov and Liam Ohgren are expected to take on bigger roles. The squad has points in all four games so far (2-0-2), with Kaprizov (1-5-6), Boldy (2-3-5) and Zuccarello (2-2-4) leading the way and Gustavsson posting a 1.66 GAA and .948 save percentage in the early going. The bad news? Captain Jared Spurgeon and forward Marcus Johansson are out with injuries at the moment.
Trending: After splitting the season series a year ago, the Blue Jackets and Wild met in the season opener Oct. 10 in St. Paul, with Minnesota taking a 3-2 victory.
Former CBJ: None
