On this 9-1-1 run
The Blue Jackets have played some stinkers during this stretch where they've picked up points in 10 of 11 games, but if they play as they did against Boston the points will continue to come.
Still beat up and playing without their No. 1 goaltender in Sergei Bobrovsky, the Blue Jackets outshot Boston 30-28 and beat both Niklas Svedberg and Tuukka Rask three times en route to a 6-2 win on home ice.
They still have a ton of work to do, though, as despite this significant stretch of winning hockey, they sit nine points back of Washington for a wild card spot and only have one game in hand.
Their next three are vs MIN, @ ARI and @ COL. They should be able to win at least two of those games. They need to, anyways.
On Connauton
The waiver claim of Kevin Connauton didn't seem like much at the time, but boy has it paid dividends for the Blue Jackets thus far.
Connauton has stepped in and eaten up 16-17 minutes a night while faring well in possession - he has a +3.82CF% relative to the team without him - and has contributed seven points in 14 games (including five in his last four).
His play also allowed Columbus the flexibility to trade Tim Erixon for Jeremy Morin, who has played well for the Jackets thus far and has given them more scoring depth up front.
On the controversial goal
My take on Columbus' 5th goal, which has Jack Edwards losing his mind in the broadcast booth: the puck hitting the netting was no big deal. Should the play have been blown dead? Absolutely. The rule is if the puck goes out of play it's over. That wasn't the case and the Blue Jackets eventually scored. That said, play continued for almost three minutes after that happened and both teams had several scoring chances, so it had little impact on the play. The puck actually hit the netting in the Blue Jackets zone, so if anything the early advantage for play continuing goes to the Bruins.
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