COLUMBUS, Ohio — With 58:04 in the books and the Philadelphia Flyers leading 2-0 over the Columbus Blue Jackets, nearly all 16,000-plus fans at Nationwide Arena thought the game was over.
Blue Jackets forward Boone Jenner knew it wasn’t.
His goal with about one minute to play inspired a Blue Jackets comeback, as teammate Cam Atkinson collected a Brandon Dubinsky rebound to tie the game with eight seconds left and sent the game to overtime. The Blue Jackets went on to win a five-round shootout thanks to a nifty move by Jenner and topped the Flyers 3-2.
“It was a relentless win for us,” Jenner said after the game. “You see how many shots we had and how much zone time we were getting, but we weren’t getting rewarded for it. It just happened that it took us 59 minutes. We scored two huge goals at the end there to give us a chance in overtime. From then on, we were all in.”
Atkinson said he could see the bench jumping up and down with excitement when he tied the game.
“It was like kids in a candy store,” Atkinson said with a smile. “The boys on the bench were pretty jacked up. We knew we were never out of the fight until the final buzzer.”
Atkinson said that the team’s “embarrassing” 6-0 loss in Philadelphia on March 5 was all the motivation they needed to come out tough in this game.
“If getting embarrassed in their building 6-0 doesn’t give you enough motivation, then I don’t know what does,” Atkinson said. “We knew they were going to come out hard, fighting for their playoff lives. We know where we’re at in the standings. It would’ve been easy for us to shut it down and give them the win.”
Instead, the Blue Jackets dominated the majority of the game and put 45 shots on Flyers goaltender and ex-Blue Jacket Steve Mason. But, Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella knew his team was frustrated with getting so many pucks through without having a goal to show for their efforts.
“I give our guys a lot of credit; you can get very frustrated in that type of game when you’re generating offense but not being rewarded,” Tortorella said. “It was a very easy game to get frustrated in because we were in their end zone quite a bit. But we stayed with it, and quite honestly, it’s a game I thought we deserved to win.”
Tortorella also said that he wished the team was playing for more than just their pride down the final stretch of the season.
“I wish the games meant something,” Tortorella said. “I wish it was us trying to crawl into the playoffs because I think it would be a better lesson, but we have to take it as a lesson to stay with it and not blow yourself up.”
What did blow up in tonight’s game was an early second period hit. Blue Jackets forward Jared Boll came crashing into Flyers forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare as the Flyers rushed up the ice. Boll was given a five-minute interference major and a game misconduct, and Tortorella was not happy about it.
“I don’t think that’s a five-minute penalty,” Tortorella said. “I think it’s a two-minute interference call. That’s a good check. We don’t want to see anybody hurt, but that’s not a headshot, so I thought it should have been two minutes. Quite honestly, Gudas sucker-punches Boll and gets nothing. So the refs thought they got it right.
“But I was upset they were throwing Boll right out of the game right away. I was still waiting for a call. Boll shouldn’t have been thrown out. With this league here, these are good hits. It’s gotten so conservative as far as body-checking in our game, that everyone gets so excited because it’s a good hit. That was not a headshot. Was it late? Yes. So that’s your two-minute interference call. You just see too often in our game, when it’s a good, solid hit, everyone gets up in arms. That’s what missing in our game, quite honestly, as far as this good game of hockey we’re talking about.”
Despite Boll’s ejection, Tortorella said that tonight’s game is a great lesson for the team moving forward.
“I’m glad that we were rewarded,” Tortorella said. “To play that hard with that many shots on net and come away with a loss, what do you come back with for the next game? They’re human beings. They know this doesn’t put us into the playoff hunt. We’re playing for pride here. Sometimes it’s tough to generate, especially if we don’t get anything out of this game with how hard we were playing.”
After that character win, it is hard to deny that the Blue Jackets played with pride tonight.
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