Blue Jackets Extend Winning Streak To Four Games, Defeat Defending Stanley Cup Champion Washington Capitals 3-0 At Nationwide Arena

By Dan Dukart on February 12, 2019 at 9:35 pm
Anthony Duclair celebrates his 11th goal of the season
Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
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Four in a row.

After a five game losing streak threatened to plague their season, the Columbus Blue Jackets have responded by reeling off four straight wins of their own, beating the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals 3-0 at Nationwide Arena.

The Blue Jackets played an impressively defensively sound game against the offensively gifted Capitals, holding the visitors to just 20 shots against and just seven against through two periods.

  1 2 3 F
BLUE JACKETS 0 1 2 3
CAPITALS 0 0 0 0

After an entertaining but scoreless first period, Anthony Duclair opened the scoring in the second period with his 11th goal of the season on a beautiful stretch pass from Oliver Bjorkstrand, which caught the Capitals in the midst of a bad change. Duclair, who had Alexander Wennberg to his right and David Savard as the high option, opted to shoot, beating Braden Holtby through the five-hole.

At the 16:13 mark of the third period, the Blue Jackets scored the ever-important insurance goal, a beautiful goal on a three-on-two. Nick Foligno, after dropping the puck to Seth Jones, got a pass right back in the slot, where he buried his 14th goal of the season. 

Artemi Panarin added an empty-net goal, his 22nd goal of the season. 

With Holtby pulled, Tom Wilson had a glorious scoring chance, but a sprawling Sergei Bobrovsky stymied the power forward. With the win, Bobrovsky moved his record to 23-16-1, and added his third shutout of the season.

Early in the first period, Josh Anderson took a (clean) hit from Tom Wilson and left the game for the remainder of the period, but returned in the second. Despite being held without a goal for the first time in four games, Anderson was noticeable in his limited action, and added an assist on Panarin's empty netter.

Game Notes

Ryan Murray set a new career high in points (1-25-26) after tallying his 25th assist of the season.... Cam Atkinson played his 500th game in the NHL - and in a Blue Jackets sweater - in the win.... Anthony Duclair has two game-winning goals on the season, both against the Washington Capitals.... Alexander Wennberg, who's struggled on faceoffs throughout his career, won 15/18, including 9/11 in the defensive zone... The Blue Jackets penalty kill remained excellent, shutting down the dangerous Capitals' power play on their only power play chance... Per NaturalStatTrick, the Blue Jackets produced nine 5v5 high-danger scoring chances, and held the Capitals to zero (!) high-danger scoring chances against... Alexander Ovechkin, who gets his first mention in the game notes, had just two shots on goal and five shot attempts.

Injury Update

Brandon Dubinsky remained out of the lineup and missed his fourth consecutive game.

Next Up

The Blue Jackets take on the Metropolitan Division-leading New York Islanders on Thursday night at Nationwide Arena.

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