Columbus Blue Jackets @ Columbus Blue Jackets: 2022-23 NHL Season Game 23 Recap

A trip to Pitsburgh to face the Penguins is always a fun, rivalry challenge.  Period 1 would start out with a Blue Jackets bang, thanks to the one and only Johnny "Hockey" Gaudreau!  At just 1:00 into the game, he'd set a goal home.  Assist on this goal would go to the equally talented Patrik Laine.  This is Gaudreau's ninth goal of this season and Laine's third assist this season.  Amazing enough, this would be the only goal all period, giving the Blue Jackets a 1-0 lead.  

However, the Penguins would make the Blue Jackets pay for that early goal.  B. Rust would score at 1:15, then S. Crosby would follow up with two goals, one at 2:02 and a second at 10:14.  An interference call would give the Penguins a chance at a fourth goal, but thankfully the penalty shot given to T. Blueger would be no match for Goaltender Elvis Merzlikins.   The Penguins would lead at the end of this period by a 3-1 score.  

That 3-1 score would hold for much off the third period.  Eventually, with just a few minutes left, Head Coach Brad Larson would make the motion for Elvis Merzlikins to leave the Blue Jackets net.  This would've given the Blue Jackets a 6 to 5 player advantage.  However, as this would be in motion, the Penguins would gain control of the puck back.  Merzlikins would hustle back to the net, but sadly he wouldn't be able to stop the score by T. Blueger at 16:33. The Penguins would hold on to the 4-1 lead and win tonight.  

Now, this looks like a painful loss...and with it being against the Penguins, it was.  However, this game was not without effort.  The Penguins simply blocked any chances of scoring for the Blue Jackets, after that quick goal just 1:00 into the game tonight.  The Blue Jackets had 4 more shots on net than the Penguins, 38 compared to 34.  We won the faceoff battle, by a slim margin, at 52.6.  We killed 4 of the 5 Power Plays the Penguins have.  Our downside was not capitalizing on the 5 Power Plays we had.  Penalty Minutes were even, as was the Power Play chances for both teams.  We also lost bad in blocks, they had 25 and we had 9.  Giveaways we had only 4, while they had 8.  Hits, 29 for them while we had 2 less, 27.    They took 9 from us, while we took 4 from them.  Coming back from injury, Elvis Merzlikins stopped 30 of 34 shots on his goal.  In many ways though this game we won, with the exception of the most vital part in hockey, goals.  These numbers aren't bad though, which is encouraging for the future.  

Tonight, was special, even without the win.  Kirill Marchenko and Tim Berni both got to skate into the NHL spotlight for the first time.  Congratulations to both young me, I hope your careers are long and filled with wins (with us).

Game 24 of this NHL Season will be here in the blink of an eye, truly.  Tomorrow night the Blue Jackets will travel home to Nationwide Arena, welcoming the Buffalo Sabers back to Columbus. This game will have a 7:30 puck drop as it will be the first of two featured games on TNT, which will be very exciting!  If any updates are given for the team between now and then, I'll update you 5th Line!

Go CBJ!