The Blue Jackets’ resilience is a big reason they’ve got five games left and haven't been eliminated from the playoff hunt in the NHL’s Eastern Conference.
Their odds of avoiding that fate are incredibly slim, but they’re set on pushing hard until they’re officially eliminated or run out of games, no matter which comes first.
That was evident in a 5-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at Nationwide Arena, where a crowd of 15,188 watched the Jackets’ display more grit after losing three straight games. Facing a team that had already beaten them twice in Ottawa in the previous nine days, including a 4-0 loss Sunday at Canadian Tire Centre, the Blue Jackets never trailed.
“We know the situation we’re in,” center Adam Fantilli said. “We see the standings. We’ve still got to give ourselves the best chance to get in. We put ourselves in a tough position, but our goal is to win out the rest of the season, obviously, and put ourselves in the best position possible to get into the playoffs. That’s still our goal.”
Here are three takeaways:
Columbus Blue Jackets still need a miracle to qualify for the playoffs
Defeating Ottawa pulled the Blue Jackets even with the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings at 79 points each. All three have five games left and now they’re chasing just one final playoff spot controlled by the Montreal Canadiens — who are close to clinching the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Montreal’s victory over the Red Wings on Tuesday gave the East’s first wild card to Ottawa, so it’s now a four-team race for the second wild card with the Canadiens just one more win in regulation away from clinching it.
The Blue Jackets likely need to win all five of their remaining games and hope the Canadiens, Rangers and Red Wings all stumble badly in their remaining games. The Jackets would cap out at 89 points in that scenario and would also need Montreal to finish with 89 points without adding another win in regulation — the NHL’s primary standings tiebreaker. That’s not impossible, of course, but it remains highly improbable.
Mathieu Olivieris more than a heavy fist for the Columbus Blue Jackets
Mathieu Olivier missed 28 of last season’s first 53 games before playing the last 29 in a row. Only one of those 28 absences was due to injury, which means he was a healthy scratch for the other 27.
Olivier finished with 10 points on five goals and five assists, adding half of those points (four goals, one assist) in his finishing stretch of games while playing right wing on the fourth line. This season, Olivier has thrived offensively under new coach Dean Evason and new assistant Scott Ford — an assistant with the Milwaukee Admirals who’d coached the power forward at that level.
Olivier displayed a little bit of everything he’s capable of providing in the victory over the Senators.
He set up the game’s first goal with a great feed from behind the net to Dmitri Voronkov in the slot. His 18th goal was scored by putting himself into a great spot near the net before Erik Gudbranson fired a shot that Justin Danforth tipped for a redirection that bounced into the net off Olivier’s left skate.
Olivier, the league’s unofficial heavyweight champion,alsothrew his weight around while throwing Senators players around in scrums. If he can replicate this type of production throughout thesix-year, $18 million contract extension he signed March 5, that deal will be quite a bargain for the Blue Jackets.
“He’s a very unique player,” coach Dean Evason said. “(That’s) clearly why we signed him to a contract. He’s a rare breed, for sure. Do we love that he can beat the snot out of people and be physical and still score goals and score assists and block shots and kill penalties? Yeah, that’s good.”
Depth scoring sparks Columbus Blue Jackets against Ottawa Senators
The Blue Jackets’ first two goals were scored by their third and fourth forward lines, but neither could be described as “greasy” or “dirty” unless using the latter term in conjunction with the world “dangle” following it.
Voronkov’s goal was scored seven minutes into the first period with a one-timer off Olivier’s feed to end the Jackets’ scoring drought at 159:04 and his personal drought at 16 games. Justin Danforth made it 2-0 with 3:22 left in the first on the type of goal he used to score quite a bit in stops along his NHL path.
Getting the puck on the right wing in the neutral zone off a long clearing flip by rookie Denton Mateychuk, Danforth skated it into a 2-on-2 rush, dangled the puck to avoid a stick check in the slot and fired awrist shot over goalie Anton Forsberg’s glove for his ninth goal.
After watching the puck zip under the crossbar, Danforth turned around with his arms wide and skated to the left wing for a "fist bump" with Scott Collins of Lewis Center, a Blue Jackets fan who recorded it with his phone.
“I’ve scored some goals in my years,” Danforth said. “It was nice to score a goal that wasn’t in the paint tonight (the crease), so it felt good. Great play by (Mateychuk) and (Zach Aston-Reese) driving the net, opening it up for me. It was a great team goal.”
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached atbhedger@dispatch.com and@BrianHedger.bsky.social
