Jackets have Lightning in a bottle
COLUMBUS 5 TAMPA BAY 1 (Jackets lead series 2-0)
TAMPA, Florida — The Columbus Blue Jackets are making a serious bid to knock the team with the best regular-season record out of the playoffs.
Matt Duchene had a goal and three assists, Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves, and the Blue Jackets stunned the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1 on Friday night to take a 2-0 first-round series lead. Two down. Two more to go. “It’s half the wins that we need,” Duchene said. “We’re keeping our heads down and our eyes on the prize.”
Columbus also got goals from Cam Atkinson, Zach Werenski, Riley Nash and Artemi Panarin. The Blue Jackets started the playoffs last season by winning the first two games of the first-round series with eventual Stanley Cup Washington, which won the next four games.
Mikhail Sergachev had a goal and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 22 shots for the Lightning, who lost two games in a row just twice in the regular season. Tampa Bay matched the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings for the most wins in a regular season with 62.
“The regular season is different than the playoffs,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “Things just happen so fast. Alarms are going off. This is a five-alarm fire. But it’s adversity and sometimes that’s good that you have to go through stuff like this to see how we respond. One thing I do know about being with this group is, they find a way.”
Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov, who led the NHL with 128 points, was held off the scoresheet for the second consecutive game and picked up tripping, boarding and 10-minute misconduct penalties late in the third period.
It’s likely that Kucherov will face discipline from the NHL.
“I’m not going to give you any thoughts on it,” Columbus coach John Tortorella said. “It’s selfexplanatory.”
The Blue Jackets rallied from a three-goal, first-period deficit to beat Tampa Bay 4-3 in Game 1 on Wednesday night as Seth Jones scored the go-ahead goal on the power play to cap Columbus’ three-goal third period.
Tortorella said he’s not surprised about the 2-0 series advantage even after the early hole in Game 1.
“No, and I’m serious about that,” Tortorella said. “I think we’re a good team. We’ve gone through a lot as a team. If we’re going to be successful as a team, we have to play as a team. So, even when we were down 3-0, I don’t think we got away as far as how we have to play.”
Duchene assisted on both of Columbus’ goals during the first period and put the Blue Jackets ahead 3-0 on the power play when the centre scored on the rebound at 1:28 of the second after Vasilevskiy had stopped his tip-in try.
Columbus, 28th in the NHL on the power play during the regular season, converted two of four chances and is 3-for-6 overall.
Tampa Bay’s top-ranked powerplay unit has failed in all five opportunities in in the series.
Blues 4, Jets 3
WINNIPEG — Oskar Sundqvist scored twice to propel the St. Louis Blues to a 4-3 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Friday in Game 2 of their Western Conference opening-round playoff series.
The Blues lead the best-of-seven matchup 2-0 and host Game 3 on Sunday.
Pat Maroon and Ryan O’Reilly, with the game-winner, also scored for St. Louis. Rookie netminder Jordan Binnington made 26 saves for the visitors.
Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele each had a goal and one assist for Winnipeg. Patrik Laine also scored and Dustin Byfuglien contributed a pair of assists.
Connor Hellebuyck stopped 28 shots for the Jets.
O’Reilly gave the Blues the 4-3 lead at 3:46 of the third when he used Jets defenceman Ben Chiarot as a screen to beat Hellebuyck on the blocker side. It was his first playoff goal since 2014 while he was with Colorado.
Islanders 3, Penguins 1
UNIONDALE, New York — Jordan Eberle and Josh Bailey scored in the third period and the New York Islanders beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-1 Friday night for a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.