SvoNotes: Blue Jackets find a way to win in Seattle

The Blue Jackets had lost five straight road games heading into a contest at Seattle on Saturday night, and the way things developed, running that streak to six would have been a tough pill to swallow.
Columbus had a 4-1 lead after 40 minutes thanks to its first four-goal period of the season, but slowly the Kraken battled back to tie the score with just over four minutes to go.

But in the end, Jake Bean's overtime goal allowed the Blue Jackets to snap the streak, giving the Blue Jackets a 5-4 victory to start a five-game trip.

"Yeah, it would have been a huge deflator, obviously you're up 4-1 going to the third, to not get both points," head coach Brad Larsen said. "It's not a divisional game so you don't really care that they got a point, you just want to get the two. So that would have been tough to swallow.
"You have two days between games here, and I can tell you this from experience, you really enjoy the day off after a win."
Max Domi scored twice for Columbus and added an assist, while Bean, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Jack Roslovic had matching 1-1-2 lines as Bjorkstrand notched the 200th point of his NHL career. Boone Jenner and Jakub Voracek each added two assists, while Elvis Merzlikins made 28 saves.
All of that was needed after the Blue Jackets saw their three-goal lead evaporate in the final period, but in the end Columbus was able to stick with it and get the win.
"Yeah, that was a character win for sure," Domi said afterward. "Obviously we came out pretty sluggish. That's a tough travel day, coming in (Thursday night) after a game like that. I'm not making any excuses, but I think as a group we knew it was gonna be a tough one.
"Elvis kept us in it in the first, and obviously we capitalized on our chances. They made a pretty good push. That's a good hockey team over there, so you have to give them credit, but we found a way to win and that's massive for our group. We have to take that for the rest of the road trip for sure."
Perhaps most impressive is how the Blue Jackets were able to bounce back as things started to go the wrong way in the third period. For the fifth time in the last six road games, the Blue Jackets gave up two goals in less than a minute, as the Kraken got a power-play goal that deflected in off the back side of Jaden Schwartz 3:42 into the third period, then Morgan Geekie got behind the defense and beat Merzlikins 22 seconds later to make it 4-3.
From there, Columbus settled things down and allowed just two Seattle shots on goal in the 11-plus minutes after Geekie's tally. But all it took was one shot, and Dunn got free with speed in the left circle and buried a shot off a pass from Adam Larsson to tie the game with 4:06 to go.
But again Columbus played pretty solid defense down the stretch to get the game to overtime, giving Bean the chance to win it.
"I think Lars on the bench said it, he just said, 'Take a breath and just play our game,'" Bean said. "It's hockey. Things happen, things happen first. They have a good crowd here and we could feel it. Just have to take a breath, keep it simple and get through the game."
At the end of the day, it didn't really matter how the Blue Jackets got that road win to get off the schneid. It was simply that they got it.
"They're not always Picassos as we say sometimes," Larsen said. "Sometimes you have to win ugly. It was funny, we got some good shifts there and then we had some puck management issues and some different things, but that's fairly typical when they are trying so hard to get that win.
"We hadn't had a lot of success on the road. We found a way. It was good."

Another OT Winner

If there's a major difference from this year to the past couple of seasons, it's that the Blue Jackets have dominated overtime and the shootout.
Columbus struggled the past two seasons once the game got past 60 minutes, and as a result the Jackets left a lot of points on the table. The Blue Jackets finished 29th in the NHL in winning percentage in overtime in 2019-20 and 26th a year ago, posting a combined record of 14-27.
But this year, Columbus is 6-1 in extra time, a mark that ties the Jackets with Minnesota for the third-best winning percentage in the NHL.
Is there any secret, or is it just luck? Maybe a little of each, but it does seem as though the Blue Jackets do at least have confidence when things get to the extra frame.

Bean, though, said he's not going to risk putting a jinx on how things have gone in free hockey to this point.
"So far so good," he said. "I'm not gonna say anything else."
For Bean, it was his second overtime winner of the season, as he also scored in overtime to win the Jackets' Nov. 3 game at Colorado. This year, Columbus is 4-0 in games decided in just OT, as two were won by Patrik Laine goals and the other two with tallies by Bean (the Jackets are 2-1 in shootouts).
This time around, Voracek entered the zone slowly and dropped off a feed to Bean as he cut into the right circle. The two Seattle defenders marking each collided with one another, giving Bean a free path to the faceoff dot, where he let go a wrister that beat Philipp Grubauer to the far side.
"They kind of messed up on the defensive side of things and they kind of ran into each other there," Bean said. "I had a ton of space and I just got it on the net. They had a guy in front of their goalie, so I just had to get it past him."

Domi, Roslovic Shine

As Larsen has tried to find forward lines that will jell, he's moved things around a few times of late, but on this night he found something good with the trio of Domi, Roslovic and Voracek.
The three combined for three goals, including the team's second and third goals as Domi and Roslovic took turns setting one another up. After Bjorkstrand got the team on the board in the second period, Roslovic doubled the advantage as he crashed the net and redirected a sweet feed from Domi past Grubauer.
After Seattle got one back, the two swapped roles, as Roslovic fished the puck out of a crowd, quickly picked up his head and saw Domi behind the defense. Roslovic's pass hit him in stride as he crossed the blue line, and Domi fired low glove to beat Grubauer and make it 3-1.

Domi added another goal in the final minute of the second period as well, as he happened to be on the ice with Jenner and Bjorkstrand and swept home the rebound of The Maestro's shot as it sat in the crease.
The line was on the ice for Seattle's tying goal, but Larsen still was pleased with what the trio brought to the table.
"They were dangerous," the head coach said. "They got rolling there. Max scores a couple great goals there and Rosco. It was a great response. They got caught there on the fourth goal -- it's funny, they're all above the puck but then they were backchecking and they were too low. It's a tough one, but I thought they played hard tonight and that was a huge, huge line for us tonight as far as their production."

Stats and Facts

• Bjorkstrand has 92 goals and 108 assists among his 200 points. He's the second CBJ player to reach that milestone this year, joining defenseman Zach Werenski.
• Bean is the fourth defenseman in CBJ history with multiple overtime goals, joining Seth Jones (8), Zach Werenski (5) and Jaroslav Spacek (3).
• Domi had his third three-point game of the season. It was also his first multigoal game as a member of the Blue Jackets.
• Columbus improved to 5-8-0 away from Nationwide Arena.
• The Blue Jackets finished the season series with Seattle with all four points thanks to a pair of overtime wins.
• Cole Sillinger won eight of nine faceoffs, while Jenner was 15-9 at the dot.
• Seattle goalie Grubauer was credited with a hit on Sean Kuraly in the third period, just as Merzlikins was six days ago in the Jackets' win over San Jose.
• Columbus finished 0-for-2 on the power play, while Seattle scored on its only chance.