Winning Thoughts: Pyyhtia's goal highlights victory over Edmonton

After CBJ wins, we'll give three takeaways about what stood out or what we'll remember from the Blue Jackets victory.

BLUE JACKETS 6, OILERS 1

1. How can you not be happy for Tuna?

Mikael Pyyhtia is naturally a quiet guy, but it’s fair to say that guys love playing with him. Talk to any CBJ player or those who skated with him in Cleveland a season ago, and Pyyhtia is the kind of guy you root for.

And on a night where there was plenty to celebrate for the Blue Jackets, the most palpable joy came when the 22-year-old forward scored his first NHL goal in his 27th game at the highest level.

Adam Fantilli found him through a maze of Oilers defenders and Pyyhtia didn’t miss, having nothing but an open cage to shoot into to give the Jackets a 5-0 lead in the third period. It was a fitting assist for Fantilli considering he showed up at the rink and all but told the man they call “Tuna” that he was getting his first goal.

“I came in before the game and I told him, I was thinking about it all day – he had to get one tonight,” Fantilli said. “He was like, ‘Yeah, I’m actually feeling it too.’ As soon as he tucked it in, I was pumped behind the net. I was pointing at the net, making sure someone picked (the puck) up.

“I’m pumped for him. You never forget your first goal. I walked in the dry stall (after the game) and he said, ‘I’m not sleeping tonight.’ I was like, ‘I didn’t either. You’re gonna remember it forever.’”

The man of the hour confirmed it with a thousand-watt smile on his face and a donkey hat in his locker stall.

“It feels awesome,” Pyyhtia said. “First goal, you’ll remember that all your life. I felt that (I would score) too in the morning, and (Fantilli) said, ‘I feel you can score one today.’ I was like, ‘I feel it too.’ That was a funny moment.”

The funny thing is that Pyyhtia was a pretty good goal scorer in his native Finland. The fourth-round pick in the 2020 draft had 21 goals in 2021-22 with TPS in his home country, but he had found paydirt hard to come by at the start of his NHL career despite drawing rave reviews from coaches and teammates alike for his solid play all over the ice.

It helped that he’s started to shoot the puck more in the last two games. After zero shots on goal in the Jackets’ first six games this season, he had three on Saturday night in Nashville – including nearly winning the game late in regulation – and two more Monday night.

And, of course, one that went in.

“Everyone told me, ‘Shoot more, shoot more. You have a good shot,’” he said. “Now I shoot more, and now (the goal) came. I probably need to shoot more.”

2. It was a memorable night for his whole line as well.

Head coach Dean Evason made a switcheroo with the top two trios Monday night, reuniting the “Monahanov” line of Yegor Chinakhov, Sean Monahan and Kirill Marchenko and slotting Cole Sillinger with Fantilli and Pyyhtia.

On a night when the Blue Jackets scored six goals for the fourth time in eight games, it paid off. Monahan had a pair of goals, including one on the power play to get things started in the opening minutes, and every member of the Sillinger-Fantilli-Pyyhtia line scored.

For Sillinger and Fantilli, there was an immediate connection. The two played just over 11 minutes together at 5-on-5 a season ago and were on a line together Monday for the first time this season, but the production quickly clicked as both Fantilli and Sillinger tallied in the first period.

“To actually be on a line, we were pretty pumped this morning,” Sillinger said. “I think we have chemistry, and we complement each other well, so I thought we showed that tonight. We both want it for each other. We both want to do well, and we both want this team to do well, so it’s nice for us to click. We just have to keep that going.”

If they can, it’ll give the Blue Jackets two top scoring lines that are hard to handle for opposing teams.

“Anytime you can have waves of offense coming in like that, it’s gonna be great,” Fantilli said. “Playing with Silly and Tuna, it’s hopefully something where we can establish the first two lines of offense.”

3. Elvis Merzlikins made bit of a statement in this one as well.

Daniil Tarasov had started the previous four games in goal – two of them when Merzlikins was out with an upper body injury – and Evason had talked about how Tarasov's play had earned him that time between the pipes.

Merzlikins will thus earn some more opportunities of his own after stopping 31 of 32 shots against Edmonton and coming just seconds away from a shutout when the Oilers scored a power-play goal in the final 30 seconds.

More than just making the saves, Merzlikins was square to shooters and played with a composed demeanor, letting the play come to him rather than trying to do anything spectacular. The result was his best performance of the young season.

“It definitely feels good,” he said afterward. “I had help from the guys cleaning those guys who were in the front of me, in my vision, but it feels good. I just have to catch that flow and that wave. I didn’t play hockey for two weeks. I was mostly all the time every day in the gym and in the Ice Haus (rehabbing and practicing).

“It was frustrating to start the season like this, especially when the boys have success and you can’t join that feeling.”

But if there has been some frustration with the injury, Merzlikins hasn’t shown it, Evason said.

“Elvis has been a leader on our team so far,” the head coach said. “He’s led by example. He’s led in practice. He’s led with his work ethic. The other night when he’s not playing, he’s the first one high-fiving guys and praising guys. He’s been fantastic.

“I think your point of him being calm (in net) is really good. We want him to have fire in his belly, we just don’t want him to have fire all the time. We want him to play the game composed, as we want everybody, but certainly our goaltenders. And he did that tonight.”