In Columbus, the Blue Jackets let a 4-1 lead get away form them on Thursday night in a 5-4 loss to the Florida Panthers in extra time.
Frank Vatrano scored midway through the extra session for the game-winner.
“We’re in a playoff spot now, but every game is against a division opponent, so every point matters, so we want to be in a good spot here with some games in hand,” Vatrano said. “We need to win and we’re doing that right now.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves to get the victory.
“It’s a game you don’t expect to win at that stage of the game, but I like the resiliency, I like the excitement on the bench,” Florida head coach Joel Quenneville said. “Everybody stuck with it. Multiple guys were contributing. It seemed like we kept the momentum going and added to it as well.”
Patrik Laine scored to snap a seven-game drought.
Oliver Bjorkstrand scored twice for the Jackets to give them a 2-0 lead.
Patric Hornqvist cut the Columbus lead to 2-1.
Max Domi scored to give Columbus a 4-1 lead.
After the Blue Jackets took the 4-1 lead, Ryan Lomberg, dropped the advantage to 4-2 on his first NHL goal.
“We knew if we stayed with it, we could chip away,” Lomberg said. “It was a great team win for sure.”
Owen Tippett and Aleksander Barkov (power play) tied the game to force the extra session.
“It was pretty jammed up,” Tippett said. “But once we got that first one, and everyone kind of started to use their feet more and everyone used each other, the energy just went up on the bench and we were able to come back.”
Elvis Merzlikins made 27 saves in the loss.
“We’ll be OK. We’ve got to keep growing,” Tortorella said. “Although we don’t get a full result tonight, we get a point. We’ll take the point. We’ve got a lot of good things going on. We’ve got to focus on that.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.