After CBJ wins, we'll give three takeaways about what stood out or what we'll remember from the Blue Jackets victory.
BLUE JACKETS 2, GOLDEN KNIGHTS 1, OT
1. The Blue Jackets went into one of the toughest buildings in the NHL to play and held their own.
Much has been made over the years about the so-called Vegas flu – the propensity for Sin City's visitors to not have their best games while playing in a city with, shall we say, so much to do – that has allowed the Golden Knights to be one of the best teams in the NHL on home ice.
It also could just be that the Golden Knights always have had good teams, and that the loud, rowdy, Las Vegas-themed atmosphere makes it tough on opposing squads. Whatever it is, it's never easy to win in Vegas, as the Golden Knights entered Thursday night with a 19-6-2 record at home this season while scoring 3.56 goals per game.
Blue Jackets head coach Dean Evason knew going in that trying to run and gun with the Knights on their home ice was a fool’s errand, so his team had a clear directive.
“Our thought process, or one of our keys, was to try to be a frustrating group tonight,” Evason said. “That meant not opening things up. It means not giving them any life. It meant making it a boring game. … If we can stick around in games like this and buildings like this, then it says some good things.”
The Blue Jackets did exactly that, allowing the Golden Knights to score less than five minutes into the game and then shutting them out from there. There were some frantic early shifts for the Jackets as Vegas was buzzing coming out of the gate, but Columbus played defensively sound hockey over the last two periods and overtime to shut down the Golden Knights.
In general, it was a game where every inch of ice was fought for, and the Blue Jackets did a better job of winning those battles as the game went on. According to Natural Stat Trick, Vegas had six high-danger scoring chances at 5-on-5 in the first period, two in the second and zero in the third.
“We just talked about not giving them anything for free,” said Cole Sillinger, who scored the overtime goal. “If they do create something, make sure they earn it.”
2. Elvis Merzlikins turned in a performance befitting of his name in Vegas.
The CBJ netminder has always seemed to feel at home in T-Mobile Arena, and he delivered another excellent performance on Thursday night. He posted his first career shutout in Vegas back in 2020 and stopped 25 of 26 shots this time around, upping his career save percentage to .954 in three games in Sin City.
Whether it’s because of his name – Elvis Presley, after all, is a Vegas icon – or his love of the energy in the building, Merzlikins has been The King in T-Mobile Arena.
“This is my absolute No. 1 (building) of the NHL,” Merzlikins said afterward. “I’m gonna be honest. It’s a huge building. It’s loud. It’s awesome. There is a big energy here, and it’s fun to play here.”
That being said, the way Merzlikins is locked in right now, the game could have been on Mars and he probably would have been pretty good, too. He’s now 10-2-1 in his last 13 starts and has been particularly sharp in his last six games, allowing just 10 goals and posting a save percentage of .939 in that span.
“He’s playing his best hockey right now for us in a very key time and certainly a reason why we’re able to win games like this,” Sillinger said.
Merzlikins’ best save may have come in the early moments when he went right-to-left to stop Jack Eichel at the back door, and he was calm, cool and composed as the night went on. He made a couple nice glove stops on Alex Pietrangelo in the second and was on his game in the third as the Jackets held the Golden Knights at bay.
The only goal he gave up came on a wrist shot by Tomas Hertl from the left dot in the first period, and Merzlikins admitted that was one he could have had.
“I did my own mistake on the first goal,” he said. “I cheated, so I got punished right away there because I saw the player on the back door. I was more hoping that he’s gonna pass it there, but he saw me cheating, and you get punished. But then during the game, yeah, I felt pretty good. Guys did an amazing job blocking the shots and clearing my vision in front of the net.”
3. Sillinger and Adam Fantilli not only scored, they did excellent jobs against two of the toughest lines in the NHL to defend.
With Sean Monahan on the shelf with a wrist injury, the Blue Jackets top-line center is Fantilli, who is 20 years old and played in NHL game No. 100 in Las Vegas. The No. 2 center is Sillinger, who has in his fourth season in the league but is still just 21 years old.
Their challenge on this night was slowing down two lines with plenty of offense in them, with Jack Eichel centering the Golden Knights’ top trio and Hertl in the middle of the No. 2 unit.
A look at the scoreboard and the fact the Golden Knights got just one goal on the night will tell you how well that went for the Blue Jackets, and the cherry on top was that Fantilli and Sillinger got the goals for Columbus as well.
Fantilli drew the job of matching up against Eichel and not only helped keep that line off the scoreboard, he tied the game late in the first period as he crashed the net and put home the puck in a scramble.
“It was cool,” he said of the matchup with Eichel. “He’s a great player and he’s done a lot in this league. He’s a guy I watched a lot, especially him going through the college route and doing what he did in college and then coming in.”
With his tally, Fantilli notched his 27th career goal, good for fourth all-time among CBJ players in their first 100 NHL games.
Sillinger, meanwhile, had missed the last three games with an upper-body injury but didn’t miss a beat in his return, spending most of the night going up against Hertl. He notched his first career overtime goal in this one, going the net after goalie Ilya Samsonov denied a breakaway from Kent Johnson and a follow-up shot from Zach Werenski and slamming the puck into the open net.
“It’s nice to seal the game,” he said.