The body language said it all.
The second the puck crossed the goal line off Cole Sillinger 's stick Friday night in Anaheim, the second-year Blue Jackets center immediately looked up and shook his head. He pumped his fists, raised a knee and depicted the act of yanking a "monkey" off his back before teammates converged.
"Goal Sillinger" had finally returned to snap a 45-game drought spanning back to Nov. 17 . No wonder he looked like a guy who had finally found an oasis in the desert.
It was a tying goal that briefly gave the Blue Jackets a lift late in the second period of a stinging 7-4 loss to the Anaheim Ducks , but the relief was undeniable.
"It feels pretty good, but … one goal in how many games?" Sillinger said during an interview shown on Bally's Sports Ohio. "I obviously demand more of myself, but yeah, it's a good start."
Sillinger, who scored 16 goals and his first NHL hat trick last year, hadn't scored in four months. He also hadn't scored in 600:04 spent skating in 818 shifts. He hadn't scored in 126 consecutive attempted shots and was denied on 60 straight shots on goal.
That's a ton of frustration. It only "felt pretty good" to end it?
No, based on reaction, it felt like an elephant being removed with an industrial strength crane. That's how much weight is now off Sillinger's shoulders for the final 14 games plus any he might play with the Cleveland Monsters in the AHL's Calder Cup playoffs.
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Sillinger already has a strong NHL frame at an age that probably makes peers jealous, but even that was no match for the weight of expectations in his "sophomore" season.
Every shift without a goal made those heavier. Every shot denied by goal posts, crossbars or goalies brought more disbelief in what was happening to him and more credence to things like curses and "sophomore slumps" — which Sillinger said he didn't believe in when the season began.
As Sillinger learned the hard way, the NHL's "sophomore slump" is something a lot of players struggle to overcome. The hope now for the Blue Jackets is that his is ending. Picked 12thoverall in 2021, Sillinger is too important to this team's future to become an enigma of a prospect whose star only shines for one promising season.
Sillinger needs to become a franchise pillar for Columbus — along with Kent Johnson, rookie Kirill Marchenko and others ― and overcoming a prolonged "drought" could ultimately help that happen.
The Jackets are banking on it.
"You hope this allows him to kind of just take a breath here and rediscover that scoring touch that we know he has," coach Brad Larsen said. "Great to see him score for us."
It's taken most of the past two seasons, but the Blue Jackets are officially dangerous on power plays.
After going 2 for 4 Friday in Anaheim, they've netted at least one power-play goal in seven of their past eight games, including six in a row Feb. 28 to March 14. The Jackets are also 8 for 21 and rank first in the NHL during that eight-game stretch with a sizzling 38.1% success rate.
It's not just the first unit, either.
Johnny Gaudreau , Patrik Laine , Boone Jenner and the rest of that group lead the way, but a second group led by rookie Kent Johnson, Emil Bemstrom and Cole Sillinger is also clicking. Each group scored Friday against the Ducks, who took ill-advised penalties that allowed the Blue Jackets' power-play units to keep the game tight.
That's a big shift from the first four months of this season, when the Jackets struggled even getting set up in the offensive zone during power plays. They ranked last in the NHL through 53 games with a paltry 15.6% success rate (22 of 141), but are second in the league since Feb. 14, going 12 of 40 (30%) in the past 15 games.
Laine, in particular, has benefited most from that stretch while also significantly contributing to it. He's second in the NHL with six power-play goals since Feb. 14, trailing only Edmonton Oilers star Leon Draisaitl by three goals.
"We're just trying to keep it simple," Laine said. "If there's plays to be made, we're going to try to make them, and I just try to shoot a lot of pucks. We've just been lucky the last couple weeks and have just tried to keep it going."
Should the Blue Jackets win the NHL's draft lottery, think back to defenseman Andrew Peeke's rotten luck Friday on a play that essentially gifted the Ducks a victory.
Intending to swat a rolling puck deep into the Anaheim zone, Peeke watched in horror as Ducks forward Max Jones knocked it out of mid-air and sent it into the neutral zone with just the shaft of his stick – an object that's only an inch wide.
Jones raced past Peeke, scooped the puck and beat Blue Jackets goalie Michael Hutchinson with a pretty backhand to finish a breakaway that snapped a 4-4 tie with 2:37 left to play. Jones made a good decision to jut his stick out when he spotted Peeke moving to swat it past him, but luck also played a role in what happened.
Had Peeke sent the puck an inch to the left or right of where it went, it goes back into the Ducks zone and allows the Blue Jackets to continue hunting for their own tie-breaker. Maybe they would've won in regulation or forced overtime to gain in the standings within a tightly-packed "bottom four" group of basement-dwelling teams eyeing up top draft prospect Connor Bedard.
It's mere inches in hockey that often make a ton of difference.
Could Peeke's bad luck in March lead to good luck for the Blue Jackets in May? It's certainly within the realm of possibilities.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets center Cole Sillinger ends goal drought
