Stars of the Night & Game in One Picture: Florida

The Blue Jackets played their last home game in what is most certainly going to seem like forever, and they sent the crowd home happy tonight. They didn’t play as dominantly as the 4-1 score would indicate, but 2 points are still two points regardless of how they’re won. It feels good to be looking at the standings with hope this late into the season. The CBJ end tonight 3^rd in the Metro and 7^th!! overall in the entire conference. It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? (Don’t tell whoever runs the NHL’s website though, we wouldn’t want too much attention.)

3rd Star: Boone Jenner

Jenner is a snub at 3^rd here. Jenner fought for every inch he used to score the first goal of the game and his pass to Johansen, which I can still only explain as black magic, was a ridiculously good play. I still can’t figure out how he got it to Joey being spun around like that. Wow.

2nd Star: Ryan Johansen

Oh, hey again Joey. Don’t you ever get tired of being a star of the night? No? Well, in that case keep playing like this. Joey scratched Boone’s back for the first goal and Jenner made sure to repay the favor later in the period. I could really start to like the Horton-Johansen-Jenner line.

1st Star: Sergei Bobrovsky

I’m a total Bob fanboy, who isn’t?! Bob just doing his thing again tonight. Anytime a goalie gets 36 out of 37 pucks the man deserves a star, and thankfully it seems like the Bob from the 3 game L streak is yesterday’s news. Phew!

Stud: Luck

Hey, the Jackets got lucky tonight, sure. The Panthers couldn’t finish a lot of their scoring chances, and ones that they managed to get a shot on Bob was there to leave ‘em out in the cold. Sometimes you gotta get lucky to win games, and to the Jackets’ credit it wasn’t all luck in this win.

Dud: The 2^nd Period

At one point the Blue Jackets were getting outshot 10-2. Just think about that. Ugh. There’s really not much more that needs to be said about the second period except it was one of “those” 2^nd periods again.

It wasn’t the prettiest 60 minutes of hockey, but was enough pretty hockey to land the Jackets on a happy plane ride to the OC where they take on the Ducks in a rare nightcap. If you can stay up for it I think the Jackets will give us a good show.

Carry the Flag!