The opportunity was right there for the Columbus Blue Jackets. At 6:36 of the first period, Carolina Hurricanes forward Jasper Kotkaniemi went to the penalty box for four minutes after an inadvertent high stick caught Jackets defenseman Jack Johnson in the face.
It’s safe to assume that starting fast was atop coach Dean Evason’s checklist, especially after noting the Blue Jackets have been guilty of wandering into recent games instead of attacking them.
Here was a chance, on the second night of a back-to-back for Columbus, to get an early goal and ride the boost of confidence it could deliver.
But like so much else in recent weeks, it backfired.
The Hurricanes were the only team to find the net during the Blue Jackets’ four-minute power play, scoring a shorthanded goal at 8:28 of the first period that set the tone in a long night for the visitors.
Carolina won 4-1 before 18,700 in Lenovo Center, spoiling a return to Raleigh, N.C. for Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell, who spent 10 years with the Hurricanes organization before resigning after last season. He was hired by Columbus in May.
The Blue Jackets are now 1-5-2 in their last eight games and 0-5 in the second half of back-to-backs. They’ve been outscored 25-8 in those “second-half” losses to Washington, Anaheim, Montreal, Vancouver and now Carolina, all on the road.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one on the power play,” Blue Jackets defenseman Dante Fabbro said. “We played pretty well, but a few structure things happened in the game. It’s a fast game. Mistakes happen. The biggest thing is how you respond to situations like that.
“You can’t get down on yourself when things go wrong out there. You have to put your foot in the ground and push back.”
When these two get going shorthanded 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/iElHV2mrqG
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) December 15, 2024
Blue Jackets center Cole Sillinger was trying to gain the zone on the power play when he essentially skated into a brick wall. Carolina’s Seth Jarvis met him at the blue line and stripped him of the puck. Sebastian Aho scored off the rush to make it 1-0. It was only the second shorthanded goal the Blue Jackets have allowed this season.
By the end of the period it was 2-0.
“When we got down, it’s tough to come back because they put a lot of pressure on you,” Evason said. “We still had some good looks to score in key areas of the game. It just didn’t go in the net for us.”
The Blue Jackets could only get one puck past Hurricanes goaltender Dustin Tokarski, who was out of work until Carolina called him a month ago and signed him to a contract when starter Frederik Andersen went down with a knee injury.
Tokarski hadn’t started an NHL game since Feb. 18, 2023, when he played for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He hadn’t won a game since Jan. 10, 2023. Both of those numbers were updated yesterday when he became the fifth goaltender to dress for Carolina already this season.
The only Blue Jackets player to score was Dmitri Voronkov, who scored from the slot at 15:52 of the second period off a feed from Kirill Marchenko. That made it 2-1, but the flicker of hope didn’t last long. Only 1:24 later, the Hurricanes restored their two-goal advantage. Jordan Martinook scored on a wrist shot, with the help of a William Carrier screen, to make it 3-1.
This is when the game took a truly bizarre turn.
The Blue Jackets challenged that goal hoping for goaltender interference, but replays showed minimal contact between Carrier and Merzlikins, certainly nothing that kept Merzlikins from playing the puck. But Evason didn’t see it that way.
“We had it explained to us (by the league) that if the guy (Carrier) goes in there and (Merzlikins) gets bumped and the puck goes in the side that he can’t recover to … ” Evason said. “Like, if Elvis can get square, he makes that save. But he can’t (get square).
“We’re going to get an explanation. We need clarification, I guess, on every single one of them because it doesn’t, at least to us right now, seem like there’s consistency in that department.”
The Blue Jackets lost the challenge, putting them on the penalty kill. Carolina scored on the ensuing power play, but the Blue Jackets challenged once again, this time believing Hurricanes forward Tyson Jost used an illegal hand pass just after the faceoff.
If Evason had missed on this one, too, the Blue Jackets would have been charged with a double-minor penalty, putting Carolina on the power play for four minutes. But replays showed he was correct, and the score was restored to 3-1.
The Canes scored early in the fourth to cap the scoring.
The Blue Jackets spent most of the game with five defensemen without Johnson after the early high stick from Kotkaniemi. He returned to the bench late in the first period, but stayed in the dressing room after the first intermission.
Jackets forward Kevin Labanc raced off to the dressing room late in the third with blood trickling from his chin or mouth after taking a caromed puck off the face.
It was that kind of night — and that kind of month — for the Blue Jackets.
(Photo of William Carrier’s first-period goal: James Guillory / Imagn Images)
