A four-goal second period by the Vancouver Canucks was more than enough to brush aside the Blue Jackets, 5-2, Friday night in Columbus.
The outburst came from Sven Baerstchi and Brendan Gaunce (power-play goals) and Erik Gudbranson and Alexander Edler.
“It’s huge,” Gaunce said. “We were wavering in our confidence there a little bit. It seemed like we couldn’t do anything to get a win. Today was mainly about competing.”
The Canucks ended a five-game skid and improved to 17-21-6.
Seth Jones and Matt Calvert struck for goals for the Jackets who had a 1-0 lead through the first 20 minutes of play.
“You score one on the power play, you need your penalty kill to step up,” Nick Foligno said. “Tonight we didn’t do that. It cost us.”
Jacob Markstrom made 27 saves to pick up the win and heard iron pinging behind him several times.
“It was nice to get some puck luck on our side,” Canucks head coach Travis Green said. “Sometimes that’s the way it goes.”
“We played a 60-minute game,” Markstrom said. “We had a good road game. It’s obviously nice to get some bounces and score four goals and then get the empty-netter. This is how we have to play at all times.”
Jake Virtanen added an empty-net goal late.
“We were excellent in our own end. We really didn’t give them much. There’s good players on the other team that created some opportunities but we managed that game extremely well,” Gudbranson said after the win.
[WATCH: All Canucks vs. Blue Jackets highlights]
Sergei Bobrovsky made 24 saves in taking the loss.
“It was a funky second period, that’s for sure. We had a good first period. You’ve got to make your puck luck. We had luck and a lot of it was bad in that second period,” Jackets head coach John Tortorella said after the game.
You must be logged in to post a comment.