Coming off their best year in franchise history, the Blue Jackets opened their 2014-15 season in fine fashion with a road win in Buffalo.
Despite dominating the Sabres, the score was tied entering the 3rd where the Blue Jackets finally grabbed a stranglehold on the game potting two goals in the final 10 en route to a 3-1 win.
10 takeaways:
1. That was about as good a game as Columbus fans could have hoped for. The Jackets dominated through and through, and if it weren't for several posts and missed opportunities on Grade A chances, the game wouldn't have been close. Columbus outshot the Sabres 40-22, and the won the shot attempt battle 78-39.
2. How about Jack Skille? After being claimed off waivers a couple days back, he made a big impact on the game for the Jackets. He was a 61.3% possession player despite starting a good portion of his shifts outside the offensive zone, and we all saw his absolute snipe to get the Jackets on the board in the 2nd. For a team with so many injuries in their top-9, they're going to need production from depth guys. They got that in this one.
3. Cam Atkinson played a real good game. His line created quite a few chances, and he made a real nice play on his power play marker stepping around the defender and taking it to the middle of the ice. He's going to have a big year for them.
4. For all the talk Ryan Johansen was out of shape and may not have been able to play against the Sabres, I thought he looked pretty good. He wasn't as dominant as you'd expect, but he showed some nice hands, won 65% of his draws and tallied an assist in a hair over 14 minutes of ice.
5. Scott Hartnell was pretty good in his debut, but he did make one big mistake that led directly to Zemgus Girgensons' goal. He tried to level Girgensons, and completely whiffed allowing him to go in and score.
6. Tim Erixon was quite good, in my opinion. The Blue Jackets generated 16 shot attempts for and just five against when he was on the ice at even-strength, and he looked good on the power play. His skating and puck moving ability is a real plus on the back end, and though he didn't register a point, he did create some offense by setting up a few chances and taking four shots.
7. Marko Dano is going to be a player. Four shots, a hit and several chances while seeing less than 15 minutes of ice. There were 25 shot attempts at 5 vs 5 when he was on the ice, and Columbus generated 20 of them. That's a ludicrous 80%, and he did that while starting every shift outside the offensive zone. Not a bad debut.
8. Speaking of debuts, Alex Wennberg wasn't half bad either. He picked up his 1st career point (an assist) on Artem Anisimov's goal, and didn't look at all out of place. The Blue Jackets may just survive all these injuries if their youth can step up like they did against Buffalo.
9. He wasn't tested a ton, but Sergei Bobrovsky was really good. There were a couple flurry's where he held the line and made a few saves in short order, which is what Columbus needs from him. He posted a .955SV% while stopping 21-22.
10. As good as they looked, they'll need to be even better on Saturday. They're getting a Rangers team fresh off a Stanley Cup Final appearance and, though they lost some bodies, they beat St. Louis on the road in their season opener so they're not going to be an easy out. It's a good measuring stick game for Columbus early on, I'd say.
Recent posts