Winning Thoughts: Blue Jackets blow by Bruins

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

BLUE JACKETS 5, BRUINS 1

1. Elvis Merzlikins turned in his best game of the season.

Whenever you win a game, there’s a good chance the goaltender had a big part in it, but that was especially true on this Monday night in Beantown.

According to MoneyPuck.com, Merzlikins had 2.26 goals saved above expected, as Boston had plenty of good looks throughout the game but got the puck by him just once. He was a major factor in the Jackets’ 3-0 lead after the first period, bailing out the Blue Jackets a few times after turnovers, and capped his night with four saves on the same shift as the Bruins pushed for a goal late. In all, he stopped 28 of 29 shots against.

“This is a great building to play in,” Merzlikins said postgame. “I love it here. It’s nice to be here and play. They’re a good team – fast, physical. It’s a great win here.”

His teammates and coaches knew after the game that their goalie was the biggest difference in the game. While Columbus did have a three-goal lead after the opening frame, it could have been a different story as per Natural Stat Trick, Boston had seven high-danger chances in the period as well as 1.42 expected goals.

“He stood on his head and held us in,” head coach Dean Evason. “He gave us an opportunity to find a way to do some right things, because we were turning pucks over. The chances they were getting in the first period were created by them, but enhanced by what we did. So 100 percent, he saved our asses in the first period and allowed us to gather our game.”

Merzlikins has now won two starts in a row, lowered his goals-against average to 2.72 and raised his save percentage to .905. But when asked if he was starting to see his confidence grow in his game, the Latvian netminder said he doesn’t want to look too far ahead.

“I don’t want to answer this question,” he said with a smile. "I’m just taking it game by game, day by day, practice by practice. I don’t want to relax and get satisfied or happy about the performance or the wins."

2. The Blue Jackets made a little bit of history while shorthanded.

The bad news was that Columbus allowed Boston to have six power plays on the evening, with the Bruins scoring on one of them. The good news was that the Blue Jackets outscored the home team, putting a pair of shorthanded goals on the board via Mathieu Olivier and Justin Danforth.

It was just the sixth time in franchise history the Blue Jackets have scored multiple shorthanded goals in a game and the first since Dec. 31, 2022, vs. Chicago.

“There’s no question that you get those two goals, it’s like it gives you a boost forward,” Evason said. “It certainly helped us in that area, no question. We like how we killed tonight.”

Both goals were the result of hard work. On Olivier’s, he chased down a puck in the neutral zone after Adam Fantilli got a piece of it, raced past the defense on the right wing, got all the way to goalie Jeremy Swayman and tucked a backhander past him. Fantilli had an assist taken off the board on the play, but he had a key piece of the goal as he was able to tag up and be onside just before Olivier entered the zone.

“I needed to score because I did look off Adam Fantilli,” Olivier said of his tally that made it 2-0 in the first. “All jokes aside, the D kind of cheated on him and the lane opened up, so I just took it. The shot’s never a bad option. Obviously I looked pass first because he was in a prime spot and when it’s on his stick, you have a good chance of it going in. But the D-man played that lane pretty good, and I just made a play off of it.”

Danforth’s goal was the backbreaker for the Bruins, coming just 21 seconds into a penalty by Olivier early in the third period with the Blue Jackets up 3-1. Cole Sillinger made the play happen when he harassed defenseman Mason Lohrei into a turnover and then raced down the ice to grab the puck before faking a shot and sending a perfect cross-crease feed to Danforth for the slam dunk past Swayman.

“I just tapped it in,” Danforth said. “It was an open net. It was a great play by Cole. He’s obviously such a great player. He’s fun to play with on the PK. He’s a very smart player, so it makes my job easier for sure.”

3. Columbus delivered a much better third period than two nights prior in Montreal.

In fact, the final frame has been a pendulum for the Blue Jackets the past three contests. Friday night in a win over Pittsburgh, Columbus controlled the third to turn a 3-2 lead into a 6-2 victory. In Quebec, it went the opposite way, as the Jackets opened up defensively and saw a 2-1 deficit balloon into a 5-1 loss.

And on Monday night in Boston, the Blue Jackets were again on their game. While the opening two periods were helter skelter at times, Columbus was much sharper in the third, forcing the Bruins into turnovers and getting the forecheck going consistently to thwart any chance of a comeback.

The result was a final period that left the home fans booing the Bruins off the ice by the end.

“Even prior to the shorthanded goal (by Danforth), we were doing the right things,” Evason said. “We were getting pucks behind them. We were making them come 200 feet to try to score goals. It’s nice to see it, and we can now reinforce a lot of stuff that we did here in tonight’s game. But it has to be consistent. Hopefully that propels us forward to do the right things.”