It’s the mark of a good team.
The Columbus Blue Jackets, who came into Friday’s action riding a franchise-best 11-game winning streak, were nowhere near at the height of their abilities against the Montreal Canadiens. But they still squeaked out a 2-1 win.
After 32 games, this team is as good as they appear to be. It would be hard for Columbus to fall far off this pace, barring major injuries to key players (that was its undoing last season).
The underlying numbers that have propelled the Blue Jackets to 12 straight wins are staggering.
They’ve scored 46 goals, allowed only 18, and their power play has run at over 25 per cent efficiency over this impressive run.
It’s not hard to understand why.
The speed this team boasts on the back end—between rookie-sensation Zach Werenski, 22-year-old Seth Jones, the primed Ryan Murray, and veterans David Savard and Jack Johnson—makes them a bear to contend with.
If it seems as though at least one of them is up on every rush, it’s because they are. And from there, the forwards are free to prowl through the offensive zone at full force and with full confidence they’re well covered on the back check.
When you have a coach in John Tortorella, who preaches an aggressive style and has the pieces to execute it, you have a winning recipe.
The Blue Jackets forgot a few of the ingredients on Friday but goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky saved the dish.
Heck, he saved nearly everything.
Bobrovsky was beyond brilliant, especially when he stoned Paul Byron on a shorthanded breakaway in the second period, He robbed Brendan Gallagher from the goalmouth on more than one occasion, and stretched his pads in both directions to stop Alexander Radulov and Shea Weber.
The only shot that beat him was Jeff Petry’s high riser from an awkward angle, which came in the 49th minute of play.
Most of the 36 other shots Montreal took were casually turned aside by the Russian keeper, who’s been lights out this season with a .935 save percentage.
At the other end of the ice stood Al Montoya, who was cannon fodder for this Jackets team, who beat the Canadiens 10-0 a number of Fridays ago.
Montoya started sharp, turning aside two quick rush chances in the opening minutes, but a perfect power-play setup gave fourth-liner Sam Gagner his 14th goal of the season in the 18th minute of the first period, and Brandon Saad’s 13th of the year proved unstoppable.
They were two of the only plays the Blue Jackets executed with precision, as they were out-played in nearly every facet of the game.
Opportunism and phenomenal goaltending helped them maintain the NHL’s best record and now they’ll break for the Christmas holidays with a target on their backs no one expected they’d earn.
Columbus was the NHL’s 27th-best team last season. Tortorella, who took over three weeks into it was the odds-on favourite to get canned by Christmas of this season.
Now this team is serving notice it’s a contender and the coach is earning consideration for the Jack Adams trophy.
The situation isn’t all that dissimilar to the one in Montreal, where the Canadiens have turned a catastrophic 22nd-place finish last season into a remarkable start to this one. No team in the Atlantic Division has jumped ahead of Montreal since week two of this season, and lately they’ve contended with a lot of adversity to remain in pole position.
It’s been nine games since top-line centre Alex Galchenyuk went down to injury, centre David Desharnais was lost a game later, and Andrew Shaw and Andrei Markov went down in subsequent games.
Defenceman Alexei Emelin, who’s been playing the best hockey of his career as Weber’s defence partner, has missed the last two games after he and his wife welcomed a third child Thursday.
One can’t help but be impressed with the way the Canadiens have stayed afloat and accumulated 46 points in 34 games.
But Montreal was expected to bounce back, especially after goaltender Carey Price laid to rest any doubt about his health when he helped Team Canada to a win at the September World Cup of Hockey.
We can’t say we expected the Jackets to do what they’ve done so far but the surprise factor is fading with every game they play—even this one, in which they were off the mark.
The Blue Jackets have served notice, they’re a good team.
