This past July, would anyone have predicted the Columbus Blue Jackets could be buyers at the next trade deadline?
During the summer, the team had barely enough cap space to sign restricted free agent Seth Jones, was burdened with several long-term contracts for unproductive players and was coming off a season in which it finished second last in the Eastern Conference.
On Monday the Blue Jackets won again (that’s four in a row) to push their record to 15-5-4, good enough for third place in the Metropolitan Division and just one point out of the division lead with two games in hand over the two teams (Penguins and Rangers) ahead of them.
They’re also only two points behind Montreal (with a game in hand) for first place in the entire NHL.
CapFriendly gives the team over $3 million in cap space currently, which projects to over $9 million at the deadline, and that doesn’t include David Clarkson’s long-term injured reserve cap relief.
It’s still early, or as Down Goes Brown would say, we need to see at least one more solid week from Columbus, but it’s getting harder and harder not to notice the good thing they have going down there in Ohio.
Here are four things we learned on Monday.
Ottawa-Pittsburgh gets all the goalies involved
The Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins played a game that fans of low-scoring, defensive battles would not enjoy, which is to say it was a highly enjoyable affair for 90 per cent of us.
Leads and chances were traded all night, though the Penguins came away with an 8-5 win.
Neither team seemed intent on stopping the other from scoring as all four goalies who dressed were eventually called into action.
Sidney Crosby was his usual marvellous self, buzzing all over the ice and firing this bullet past Craig Anderson to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead in the first period.
Evgeni Malkin, who perhaps quietly has been a point-per-game player this season, helped open the scoring by drawing the attention of Ottawa’s defencemen before threading this neat little pass to Bryan Rust.
It can be daunting to deal with the superstar duo of the Penguins, but Ottawa has a generational talent of its own.
Erik Karlsson got his sixth goal of the season, wristing one five-hole on Marc-Andre Fleury to tie the game 2-2.
Later, he set up Mike Hoffman on the power play to give the Senators a temporary 4-2 lead (see above).
Karlsson finished the night with four points to leap over Brent Burns and become the league’s highest-scoring defenceman this season.
The Penguins stormed back of course, led by Rust’s first career hat trick.
It was the first time Ottawa had given up eight goals in a game since March 18, 2014 against the New York Rangers.
Holy Pasta
How good has David Pastrnak been this season?
In the 21 games he’s played thus far, the 20-year-old has only been held off the scoresheet five times, and Monday’s game against the Florida Panthers was not one of them.
Pastrnak scored once in the second period, and again in overtime to give the Bruins their third three-game winning streak of the season.
The overtime winner in particular was something else, as Pastrnak burned Michael Matheson before fooling Roberto Luongo to end the game.
Luongo must be rather sick of the Bruins at this point.
The 37-year-old has just four wins in 13 starts against Boston since the 2011 Stanley Cup Final.
It was Florida’s third loss in four games since firing Gerard Gallant and to make matters worse, the Panthers also lost Keith Yandle to a lower-body injury in the first period.
The defenceman, who signed a seven-year, $44.45-million contract with Florida this past off-season, will have his 577 consecutive games played streak broken as he is out indefinitely.
Yandle’s ironman streak was the 10th longest in NHL history.
Eichel ankle scare
Sabres fans received quite a scare when Jack Eichel appeared to hurt his recently healed left ankle after being angled off into the boards by Washington’s Dmitry Orlov.
The young centre was in plenty of pain on the Buffalo bench, but, to the surprise of many, was able to return and complete the game.
The Sabres will need Eichel if they want to make the playoffs, and he’s looked great since returning, but you have to wonder how much that ankle is going to bother him from here on out.
For more information on the high-ankle sprain the 20-year-old is trying to play through, click here.
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Gagner going strong
Sam Gagner factored in on all four of Columbus’ goals against the Arizona Coyotes on Monday and is proving to be quite the off-season pickup.
He now has 10 goals and 17 points in 23 games for a Blue Jackets squad that, to the surprise of many, isn’t showing signs of slowing down.
As mentioned above, the team has won its last four games and seems capable of beating its opponents with both a tight-checking game and the occasional offensive outburst.
Gagner was picked up in August for the low price of $650,000.
Not bad for a 35-goal, 60-point pace.
