In Columbus, the Blue Jackets’ Elvis Merzlikins made 30 saves en route to a 5-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon.
It was the first loss of the season for the Bolts.
The win comes on the same the Blue Jackets traded away Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Winnipeg Jets.
“I just really liked the structure of our team tonight,” Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella said. “We’ve been a team just lacking that structure.”
Victor Hedman opened the scoring in the game to give the Bolts a 1-0 lead, and Ondrej Palat also scored for the Lightning.
“That’s as bad a game as we’ve had,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “I haven’t seen us play that poorly since before the first pause (in March 2020). We weren’t in sync at all. Nobody really gave us much in the game. Egregious turnovers, something that was not a trademark of ours anywhere in our playoff run.”
Columbus took a 3-1 first period lead after Mikhail Grigorenko and Vladislav Gavrikov scored.
Zach Werenski scored early in the third period for a 4-2.
Nick Foligno scored for the Blue Jackets to tie the game at 1-1.
“I don’t think relief is the right word,” Foligno said of the trade. “It just puts the focus back on what matters and that’s winning hockey games. I think that’s what was most frustrating about it.
“[Dubois] wasn’t giving us the brand of hockey we expect out of every guy.”
Eric Robinson added an empty-net goal in the third to seal the win.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves in the loss.
“They played the same way. They always play hard. They haven’t changed a bit,” Tampa’s Mikhail Sergachev said. “It’s on us. We were sloppy at times and not focused, myself included. I was sloppy. It was probably the worst game of my career. They capitalized on our sloppiness, turnovers.”
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