Nine seconds in, 1-0 Chicago.
Fourteen minutes in, 3-0 Chicago.
Sixty-two minutes and 28 seconds in, 5-4 Blue Jackets.
There was plenty of fight in the home team tonight, even after a tough start and a deficit that felt like it would only continue to grow.
It may have been Game 82 and the final game of their season, but the Blue Jackets wanted to finish it off the right way – and did they ever.
Scott Hartnell led the way and broke a 15-game goalless skid, scoring twice and adding two assists (he was the game’s No. 1 star) to cap off a wild, unpredictable and pretty darn fun 5-4 overtime win in front of a standing-room only crowd of 19,177 at Nationwide Arena.
The 33-year-old veteran of over 1,100 NHL games opened and closed the scoring tonight. His first goal was the 300th of his career and it brought Columbus within 3-1, and that’s when this game started to turn around.
And it turned around quickly.
Matt Calvert made it a 3-2 game with his second goal in as many games, banking a backhand shot in off Corey Crawford at 12:55 of the second period, and a few minutes later, it was officially “game on.”
A three-way passing play play started by Hartnell, executed brilliantly in the middle of the ice by Alexander Wennberg and finished into an empty net by former Blackhawk and current Columbus leading goal scorer Brandon Saad was the equalizer, coming with exactly three minutes left in the second period.
It was artful, it was pinpoint and it was a joy to watch. And it brought the building to life.
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