In Chicago, Joonas Korpisalo made 31 saves for the Columbus Blue Jackets in a 2-1 win over the Blackhawks on Friday night.
“I felt good. Not playing yesterday and having fresh legs and fresh mind for today, it felt good,” Korpisalo said.
Dylan Strome was the lone striker for the Blackhawks.
“[Korpisalo] is our best player tonight,” Columbus head coach John Tortorella said. “We looked like a tired team. We played a lot of hockey, first back-to-back traveling, we weren’t as sharp as we’d like to be, but Korpisalo was easily our best player.”
Oliver Bjorkstrand staked the Blue Jackets to a 1-0 lead off a power-play goal in the first period.
“Honestly, early on in the season here, I thought we’ve gotten a lot of chances. They just didn’t really go in,” Bjorkstrand said. “Maybe a few games where we struggled a little but overall, I think we’ve been pretty good on the power play, and it’s definitely nice we’re putting the puck in the net now.”
Bjorkstrand set up Eric Robinson with an outlet pass on a breakaway for a 2-0 lead to Columbus.
“Find a way (to win),” Tortorella said. “I don’t think we were that good tonight. I thought the best part of our game, which I was really happy about, the first 12 or 13 minutes of that third period, I thought we played great hockey. We checked better, we ended up with some chances, didn’t finish but ended up with some chances.”
Chicago dropped to 2-4-3 with the loss.
“I thought we played well enough to win,” Strome said. “We did a lot of good things. We had the puck quite a bit. Obviously came up short. We need to find a way to score more 5-on-5, but [we] created a little bit more. I thought we got better as the game went on, but [Korpisalo] played great. He’s a good goalie. He moves quick, made some big saves. I think we missed a couple chances too.”
Strome scored in the second period to get t Chicago close, but Columbus held them off the rest of the way.
The Blackhawks had been 2-0-3 in their previous five games.
“I thought overall we played a pretty solid game,” Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton said. “They’re a good team. They work hard, they make you earn what you get. Obviously, it’s t
ough to come from behind against a team like that. They’ve got really good goaltending. We did a lot of good things and we created more than enough to score more than one goal, and we were fairly solid defensively. By no means are we satisfied, and we expect to get better.”
Kevin Lankinen made 25 saves in the loss.
“I think both teams did a pretty good job defensively, not giving up much,” Lankinen said. “I think we as a defense played pretty well. Our defense has been better, so much better the last few games. I’m seeing a lot of good progress there.”
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