CHICAGO – The Columbus Blue Jackets took on the Chicago Blackhawks less than 24 hours after making the big David Jiricek trade with the Minnesota Wild. The move didn’t impact this game at all but the Blue Jackets organization can now move on following that situation.
Chicago got off to another fast start as they have a lot this season. Connor Bedard scored a power-play goal at 2:59 to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
That lead only lasted for a few minutes as Ivan Provorov tied it at 4:27. That was the first of many instances where the Blue Jackets put pressure on Chicago immediately after the home team scored.
Kent Johnson gave the Blue Jackets the 2-1 lead with a power play goal. Damon Severson made a perfect pass on a tee for Johnson to blast past Petr Mrazek.
Early in the second period, Craig Smith tied the game at two on the power play. Smith tipped in a Taylor Hall shot for Chicago’s second power-play goal of the game.
The Blue Jackets went on to score two unanswered goals from there courtesy of Sean Monahan and Dante Fabro. Blue Jackets star defenseman Zach Werenski assisted on both tallies.
In the third period, the Blackhawks found themselves on a five on three and they took advantage. Their third power-play goal was scored by Nick Foligno and it was set up beautifully by Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen to make it 4-3.
The theme of the game, Columbus roaring back every time Chicago scored, came out again as Kirill Marchenko scored just under three minutes after Foligno got his team within one. Dmitri Voronkov added one into the empty net to seal the 6-3 victory for the Jackets.
Chicago wasted a beautiful power play performance. They scored three times on six chances so it is fair to say that the man-advantage is heating up.
The biggest reason for this is the play of Connor Bedard. He is fully reignited following his early-season sophomore slump that saw him go 12 games without a goal. In this game, he ended with one goal (5) and one assist (14) to get him up to 19 points on the season.
At 19 years old, he leads an NHL team in scoring when most would say he’s been underwhelming in terms of offense. That tells you just how good he’s going to be when he’s in his prime playing to his potential.
Bedard is playing very well now and you can expect it to continue. Now it is on the rest of the team to take advantage of his brilliance. Their next chance will come on Wednesday when they host the Boston Bruins at United Center.
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