ANAHEIM, Calif. — Another maddening meltdown happened to the Blue Jackets on Wednesday night with better timing than most of the others that have vexed them this season .
More: Dubois' two goals lead Los Angeles Kings past Columbus Blue Jackets: 4 takeaways
After blowing a 4-0 lead in the second period, the Jackets came out motivated in the third to fix it and left with a 7-4 roasting of the Anaheim Ducks on goals by Yegor Chinakhov , Sean Kuraly and Boone Jenner .
"There's anger, there's frustration and you've got to channel it the right way," Kuraly said. "Hopefully we can continue to channel it like we did tonight in the third period from now on ... and for 60 minutes. We don't care what period it is. We've got to play our brand of hockey and the hockey we know we can play."
Chinakhov's goal broke a 4-4 tie by redirecting a pass from Johnny Gaudreau past Ducks goalie John Gibson for a 5-4 lead at 6:50 of the third. Kuraly followed 49 seconds later with his second of the game for a 6-4 lead. Jenner sealed it with 32.5 seconds left on a goal scored into an empty net.
The Blue Jackets (18-27-10) have blown 13 leads in third periods of 12 games they've lost , but made this one stand up despite giving the Ducks (20-34-2) two late power plays. Daniil Tarasov, who left the Jackets' net late in the second after taking a stick to the eye, returned to start the third and stopped all 14 shots he faced in the final frame.
Jenner and Gaudreau had three-point games with a goal and two assists each. Kuraly (two goals), Zach Werenski (two goals), Jack Roslovic (two assists) and Alexandre Texier (two assists) each notched two points.
"We played the right way in the third period, not in the second," Blue Jackets coach Pascal Vincent said. "So, we get the lead 4-0 ... we can't be sniffing, thinking offense and only offense against a team whose transition game is pretty good. We had an honest chat after the second period and the guys played the right way in the third."
Here are five takeaways:
Leaving the ice after the second period couldn't have been a lot of fun for those wearing Blue Jackets uniforms on Wednesday night at Honda Center.
Anaheim Ducks fans were rollicking in the stands after watching a 4-0 lead disappear on the Jackets with four straight goals by the team, so the Jackets' trip to their locker room felt all-too-familiar except for one thing. They still had a full period left. The Jackets took advantage of getting a full intermission to regroup and have a heart-to-heart with Vincent before returning to the ice.
"It was an honest chat," Vincent said. "You know what? We scored those four goals and there's a way to play those games. You have to lead by two, you have to lead by three, and you would think that we've learned, but we wanted five, six, seven – which I like, but there's a way to do it."
The way to do it isn't to sit back and let the opposing team that's down four goals attack in waves, which the Ducks began to do off Blue Jackets' mistakes.
"That's what we saw in the second period," Vincent said. "So, that's what we talked about, and they responded well."
Anaheim worked its way back into the game after Kuraly's first goal made it 4-0 at 2:49 of the second. Troy Terry got it started for the Ducks at 9:07, dangling the puck between two Blue Jackets before firing a wrist shot past Tarasov that cut it to 4-1.
McTavish scored the first of his two goals seven minutes later, which cut the Jackets' lead to 4-2 with Tarasov lying flat on his belly after taking Adam Boqvist 's stick blade to his right eyelid. McTavish's second, scored against Elvis Merzlikins in relief, cut it to 4-3 with 1:11 left in the period. That set the stage for Killorn, who tied it 4-4 with 23.8 seconds left in the second off an odd-man rush that started with a Gaudreau turnover.
Just like that, the Jackets had blown another huge lead. The only bright side was having one period left to take out their frustrations.
"There's a time to be angry and there's a time to understand what's going on and to learn," Vincent said. "Like I said after the game to our team, hopefully (this) is a real good learning curve, because we played the right way in the third period (and) we didn't in the second."
Teams that spiral downward as badly as the Blue Jackets have the past two months while penalty killing need to build off any positivity they can find.
Against the Ducks, that was going 4 for 4 while shorthanded, including two huge kills on back-to-back penalties by Erik Gudbranson (delay of game) and Jack Roslovic (high-sticking) in the final 4:41 of the third period. The Jackets had just gone 0 for 2 against the Kings a day earlier and had allowed at least one power-play goal in four straight games.
In the season's first 24 games, the Blue Jackets ranked second in the NHL at 89.2% killing penalties while allowing just seven goals in 65 times shorthanded. That success began to slide the wrong way once December arrived partly due to Jenner, Kuraly and Werenski all sustaining multi-week injuries.
Since Dec. 1, the Blue Jackets have ranked dead last at 66.7% killing penalties – which includes their 4 for 4 in Anaheim. It's been an issue for almost two full months, but the Kings game really made it feel like a crisis that needs to be remedied if the Jackets harbor any hope of winning games consistently.
These four kills might've been important baby steps back in the right direction.
It took a last-second goal by Jenner in San Jose and a three-goal response after blowing a four-goal lead in Anaheim, but the Blue Jackets won two out of three games on their annual California trip.
The lone disappointment was a 5-1 shellacking by the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday, when a bigger team with a lot more experience capitalized by controlling the most dangerous scoring areas at both ends of the ice. Otherwise, the Blue Jackets defeated two of their peers trying to rebuild themselves into playoff contenders as quickly as possible. The victory over the Ducks created a four-point margin ahead of Anaheim among the NHL's bottom five.
That's certainly nothing to write home about, but the Blue Jackets have shown in those types of matchups they're further along in the push for a return to relevance.
According to NHL Stats, Werenski's goals in the first period gave him his fifth career two-goal game to pass his former defense partner, Seth Jones , for the most two-goal games by a defenseman in franchise history.
Werenski had already ended a 38-game goal drought in the Jackets' 4-3 victory Saturday in San Jose to start this three-game trip, but that doesn't mean his two against the Ducks were any less exciting. Werenski pushed his season goal total to four with the twin markers and helped the Jackets build a 3-0.
The first was scored with a fortunate bounce off the rebound of Gaudreau's slapshot from the left circle, and Werenski potted the second by tapping the puck into the net off Gibson's left skate from behind the left post – scoring off Jenner's rebound.
Slumping all season from distance, Werenski's presence around the net was notable. Ducking low as a defenseman put the onus on Werenski's defense partner, Adam Boqvist, plus a forward to stay high in the zone in case of an Anaheim breakout.
The Jackets executed nicely that period and Werenski rewarded them with two goals.
Fans hoping to see a matchup between the second and third overall picks in last year's draft won't see it this season. Leo Carlsson, drafted second overall by the Ducks last June, was held out Oct. 24 in Anaheim's 3-2 overtime win over the Jackets at Nationwide Arena. In this game, Adam Fantilli (third overall) was out with a calf laceration.
The two rookies will likely match wits for years to come, but it would've been interesting to watch them go head-to-head as rookies.
Going into the draft, the consensus among analysts was that Fantilli would go second to the Ducks and begin his NHL career right away. Carlsson, it was thought, would go third to the Blue Jackets and probably spend another season in the Swedish Hockey League.
The men's world championship last spring was a key reason those projections were off. Carlsson centered Sweden's top forward line in that tournament and impressed a lot of NHL executives, including Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek. Despite receiving at least cursory pre-draft trade inquiries from the Blue Jackets and others, Verbeek wasn't interested in trading back from the second slot and wasted no time selecting Carlsson.
That left Fantilli on the table for the Blue Jackets, which was thought to be a fantasy draft scenario for Columbus just a day or two beforehand. Former Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen, fired last week amid the Jackets' painful rebuild, called Fantilli's name third and then told reporters he'd immediately begin his NHL career.
Carlsson also earned an opening NHL spot with the Ducks, even though Verbeek "kid gloved" his early approach by holding the skilled 6-foot-5 pivot out in certain games to combat mental and physical fatigue.
Long-term injuries have limited Carlsson (knee) and Fantilli more than anything. Fantilli, who has 12-15-27 in his first 49 games, has missed six games since his injury Jan. 28 in Seattle . Carlsson had 8-13-21 in 36 games before facing the Blue Jackets.
Together, they've got 86 games of NHL experience. Not a single one was against each other, but each made key plays against the other's team. Fantilli scored a go-ahead goal in the third period against the Ducks in October and Carlsson made a great feed off a rush in the second to help the Ducks tie it 4-4.
Next year could be fun if they're able to face off.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets blow 4-0 lead, roast Ducks in third: 5 takeaways
