CBJ 7, NYR 3: Fantilli's Hat Trick, Olivier's Big Night Lead Blue Jackets To Win Over Rangers

By Ed Francis on March 9, 2025 at 8:40 pm
Adam Fantilli had his second hat trick of the season and Mathieu Olivier came up big as the Columbus Blue Jackets score seven times in a dominant win over the New York Rangers.
© Brad Penner-Imagn Images
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  1 2 3 F
CBJ 1 4 2 7
NYR 1 2 0 3

CBJ GOALS: 
Danforth (P1, 5:56)
Fantilli (P2, 3:07)
Fantilli (2) (P2, 3:33)
Olivier (P2, 17:03)
Fabbro (P2, 18:46)
Johnson (P3, 10:17)
Fantilli (3) (P3, 11:51)

Adam Fantilli’s hat trick led the way as the Columbus Blue Jackets left Madison Square Garden with two key points with a 7-3 defeat of the New York Rangers on Sunday night.

Justin Danforth's got the night started with his seventh tally of the season to give Columbus an early lead.

Zach Werenski got the assist on the goal to become Columbus' all-time assist leader, with 259. Werenski would later add another assist, the 260th of his career.

With the game tied at 1-1 early in the second, Fantilli regained Columbus' lead and then extended it to 3-1 with a pair of goals less than 30 seconds apart.

Up two, the Blue Jackets gave up two short-handed goals, allowing New York to tie the game at 3-3. It was the first time this season Columbus allowed multiple short-handed goals in the same game.

It would be the Rangers' final two goals of the night.

Olivier would put the Blue Jackets back in front with just under three minutes left and Dante Fabbro would score with just over one minute left to give Columbus a 5-3 lead through two periods.

In the third period, a goal originally credited to Olivier — which would have been his second the night — was officially scored by Kent Johnson. His 21st of the season made it a three-goal lead for the Blue Jackets and Fantilli's hat trick dagger 1:34 later made it a 7-3 game and sent many of the Madison Square Garden faithful for the exits.

"We just got back to our game," said Olivier. "I thought we handled those two short-handed goals that we gave up really well. It could've been a turning point in the game but we handled it and we turned the momentum around."

Daniil Tarasov stopped 32 of 35 saves, including all 17 in the third period, to pick up his third consecutive win in net dating back to January 31st.

The win puts Columbus in solo possession of the top wild card spot and just four points behind the New Jersey Devils for third in the Metro division with two games in hand.

"We're a good hockey team in this league and I think we showed that tonight," said Werenski.

Here's how the Blue Jackets picked up their biggest road win of the season:

1st Period:

(5:56 — CBJ Goal): Danforth gets the goal but what an amazing effort from Werenski to make it happen. He starts by intercepting the puck in the Rangers offensive zone, then quickly transitions into the neutral zone and finds Danforth entering Columbus' offensive zone. Danforth gets it back to Werenski, who makes a nice move while Danforth charges the net. Z then gets it back to Danny, who's at the back post and buries it. Beautiful work from both here to put Columbus up 1-0.

(19:31 — NYR Goal): The Rangers gain momentum heading into the intermission. Lafreniere gets a shot from the point off and it's perfectly deflected by Artemi Panarin to tie the game at 1-1. 

2nd Period:

(3:07 — CBJ Goal): The Rangers fumble the puck a bit in their own zone, and that's all Fantilli needs. He grabs the puck and heads up ice with Dmitri Voronkov, creating a brief 2-on-1 before the Rangers are able to even it up. Still, Fantilli uses some fancy stickwork to give him just enough separation from defenseman K'Andre Miller and whips it past goalie Jonathan Quick for the goal. It's his 19th of the season to regain a Blue Jackets lead, 2-1.

(3:33 — CBJ Goal): Fantilli was stuck at 19 goals on the season for all of 26 seconds of ice-time; he gets his 20th here to extend the Columbus lead to 3-1. Kirill Marchenko doesn't get an assist, but does a good job of disrupting the play in the neutral zone and then just a couple of seconds, again disrupting play behind the Rangers net. Voronkov swoops in and gets the puck, then dumps it into the slot where Fantilli is waiting and again beats Quick to add to the Blue Jackets lead.

(6:54 — NYR Goal): The Rangers entered the game second in the league with 11 short-handed goals and they make it 12 here. Braden Schneider is the beneficiary of the Blue Jackets asleep at the wheel in their own zone; the defenseman gets his fourth of the season on a routine shot from near the right dot to cut the Columbus lead to 3-2.

(7:36 — NYR Goal): Another shorty, this one tying the game at 3-3 and giving the Rangers the league-lead with 13 on the season. Another blunder from Columbus, this time entering the offensive zone. It leads to a 2-on-0 breakaway with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, who gets the goal to tie the game.

(17:03 — CBJ Goal): Just before the Rangers pair of short-handed goals, Olivier couldn't settle the puck in front of the net in what almost certainly have been a goal. He makes up for that here on a goal that starts with (yet another) good pass from Werenski; this time it's from the boards and with plenty of traffic in front of Quick. With Quick's view blocked by Boone Jenner, he never sees the puck end up behind him on the stick of Olivier, who quickly puts it away to regain Columbus' lead at 4-3.

(18:46 — CBJ Goal): The fourth and final goal of a wild second period comes from Fabbro, who had picked up the secondary assist on Olivier's goal less than two minutes earlier. Like Marchenko earlier in the period, Werenski does not get an assist here but makes a smart play to keep that puck in that eventually leads to the goal. Seconds later, Kuraly gathers the puck near the left dot and sees Fabbro near the slot with no one near him. He slips it his way and Fabbro gets his fifth goal of the season.

3rd Period:

(10:17 — CBJ Goal): While Johnson gets credit for the goal, Olivier helps make it happen with a good bit of hustle. He goes nearly end-to-end before throwing the puck at the net at the last second. It pops up and bounces around a little bit before going off the Rangers' Zac Jones and into the back of the net to give Columbus a 6-3 lead. 

(11:51 — CBJ Goal): Fantilli completes the hat trick with an easy shot from the low slot on a great feed from Marchenko, who took a good look from Damon Severson just before that. Before that, Fantilli helped himself with some good keep-away of the puck behind the New York net. This one gave Columbus a 7-3 lead and effectively ended the game.

CBJ GAME STATS NYR
27 SHOTS 35
34% FACEOFFS 66%
0/1 POWER PLAY 0/4
4/4 PENALTY KILL 1/1
7 HITS 16
11 GIVEAWAYS 13
1 TAKEAWAYS 3
19 BLOCKED SHOTS 10
ALL SITUATIONS ADVANCED STATS
2.08 EXPECTED GOALS 4.31
51 SHOT ATTEMPTS 72
23 SCORING CHANCES 42
13 HIGH-DANGER CHANCES 18
Data via NHL.com & NaturalStatTrick.com

Stat Chat:

  • NHL teams were previously 0-12 this season when giving up multiple short-handed goals in the same game. 
     
  • This was the 12th time this season that the Blue Jackets scored six or more goals in a game; a new franchise record with still well over a month left in the season.
     
  • Fantilli is the fifth Blue Jacket in club history to record multiple hat tricks in the same season. The last player to do it was Cam Atkinson in the 2018-19 season.
     
  • Werenski's two assists not only gives him the all-time franchise lead in that category, but it also puts him within two of Boone Jenner for third-most points in team history, too. They're, of course, likely to shuffle back and forth on that one for a while.

Up Next:

Columbus' four-game road trip ends in New Jersey with a Tuesday night contest against the Devils. It's another key divisional game with playoff implications; this one set for a 7 p.m. face-off.

 

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