The Jackets won a fight filled affair against the New York Rangers Sunday earning a spot in the third place game Monday against the Dallas Stars.
The Jackets opened the scoring just 2:25 into the game when Oliver Bjorkstrand and Boone Jenner entered the zone with Ryan Murray trailing the play. Ryan scored on his second whack at the puck for his second of the tournament. Just 28 seconds later, Austin Madaisky scored his second off a faceoff won by Jeremy Langlois.
A few minutes later, the rough stuff began when Josh Anderson leveled a Ranger with Connor Allen stepping up for his teammate and, well, “he chose poorly” with Josh earning the takedown and the win.
Compared to the first period, the second period was a snoozefest with play moving back and forth until Dalton Smith would take on Paxton Leroux in a marathon bout that ended in a draw. Ten seconds later, Oliver Bjorkstrand would drive to the net snapping a laser of a shot over the Rangers goalie’s shoulder to make it 3-0. Another Jackets lead brought a quick response from the Rangers as just 13 seconds later, Oscar Lindberg would score to make it 3-1 (Oscar on Oscar crime terrible thing).
Late in the period another one of those “nice goal insert CBJ player here” as the announcer said someone completely different than me, my dad, and the Wild’s Assistant GM thought. Austin Madaisky had his second of the night but credit was given to Peter Sakaris for his second in as many games.
The third period is when things got wacky after Paxton Leroux (I believe) tried to get Dalton Smith into a rematch but Dalton was too smart for that. Leroux would get a piece of a Jacket taking on the big fella in 6’5″ Thomas Larkin. I’ll admit Laroux won on punches but Larkin got the takedown and also ended Laroux’s night as he was thrown out. Later in the period, Kerby Rychel joined the fun by taking on the Rangers’ 6’7″ toothpick Troy Donnay in another marathon that would end in a draw. In a scrum in the end, Josh Anderson would be knocked down and held down by the Rangers’ Klarc Wilson and it would take every bit of strength the refs had to keep Josh from killing the kid.
A minute and a half later, the Jackets had a defensive breakdown which resulted in Josh Nicholls skating in and scoring but I believe Oscar got a piece of it. The game would end 4-2 with Oscar Dansk making 21 saves for his second win of the tournament. The game would have one more kerfuffle when tough guy (based on my video research) Justin Sefton would get leveled and would take off like a shot after who hit him but the refs would stop it.
PLAYER NOTES
No one that I haven’t mentioned in this section before stood out. Oliver Bjorkstrand continued to impress with a goal and an assist. He almost adding another goal but he waited just a second or two too long. Peter Sakaris may be playing his way into a invite to main camp with his strong play. Jake Hansen also continued to impress playing on what I guess would be classified as a fourth line with Jeremy Langlois and Sakaris.
The CBJ leadership group looked a lot like what the Blue Jackets could look like in a few years (I’m thinking long term) with Boone Jenner wearing the C and Ryan Murray wearing the alternate A (those assigments could be flipped flopped when the boys lead the big club someday). Springfield Falcons forward/energizer bunny Alex Aleardi wore the other A.
LINES
Moutrey-Chaput-Aleardi
Rychel-Jenner-Bjorkstrand
Anderson-Sedlak-Smith
Hansen-Sakaris-Langlois
Heatherington-Madaisky
Murray-Larkin
Sefton-Gosselin
Dansk
DeKort
WRITERS NOTE: I have videos of the fights/scrums and Murray’s goal but due to technical difficulties, we’ll post these in a separate article later this week.
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