Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips Dec. 18-19, 2018 Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets 1, Golden Knights 0: Jackets find way to win tight game PAGE 04: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets: Right mix of offense, defense proves elusive PAGE 06: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets want to stay the course against up-tempo Golden Knights PAGE 09: The Athletic: G33: No Panarin, no problem; Blue Jackets scrap their way to win over Vegas PAGE 13: The Athletic: On the Blue Jackets’ decision to protect Josh Anderson in the expansion draft, and his side deal with John Tortorella PAGE 16: Columbus Dispatch: Artemi Panarin expected back 'very soon' PAGE 18: Columbus Dispatch: Shuffled forward lines get results PAGE 20: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets 1, Golden Knights 0: Five takeaways PAGE 23: Columbus Dispatch: The epic tale of Nationwide Arena: How its construction put life in the Blue Jackets and a heart in downtown Columbus Cleveland Monsters/Prospects NHL/Websites PAGE 38: The Athletic: Revealing GM tendencies: Which NHL GMs trade the most? When do they like to deal? PAGE 49: TSN.CA: Hakstol fired amid one of bloodiest stretches for NHL coaches ever 1 Blue Jackets 1, Golden Knights 0 | Jackets find way to win tight game By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch – December 17, 2018 It wasn’t easy, but the Blue Jackets were rewarded this time for playing a strong game. The defense was stingy, Sergei Bobrovsky notched his first shutout of the season and captain Nick Foligno scored the only goal in his 800th career NHL game to upend the Vegas Golden Knights 1-0 in front of 15,008 on Monday night at Nationwide Arena. “You’ve got to learn from your experiences, and in this game, it was, ‘Who’s going to break first?’ ” said Foligno, who scored his eighth goal 40 seconds into the third period. “We talk about that a lot. The game is kind of a stalemate at first and then all of a sudden, it’s that one opportunity and finding the way to put it in the back of the net when you have that chance.” Join our group: Join our Blue Jackets Xtra Facebook group for the latest team news The captain found it and the Blue Jackets (18-12-3) improved to 2-2-1 in the first five games of a season- high, six-game homestand. They capitalized in a game that presented a good chance to bounce back from a 2-1 overtime loss Saturday to the Anaheim Ducks, but it was harder than it could have been. Despite playing without star Artemi Panarin, who is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, Columbus faced a team playing the finale of a back-to-back and starting a backup goaltender who hadn’t played in a month. Not only that, but Malcolm Subban was 0-4-0 with a bloated 4.03 goals-against average, frigid .859 save percentage and had allowed seven goals the last time he played, a 7-2 loss Nov. 19 at the Calgary Flames. Combine all that with the Jackets playing much better defensively and one might think it might stack up to a multi-goal victory for the home team. Instead, it was just the opposite. Columbus outplayed Vegas for two periods, dominating the second, but had nothing to show for it starting the third. It was scoreless after 40 minutes despite the Blue Jackets holding the edge in shots (21-14), attempted shots (31-22) and scoring chances — which according to the website naturalstattrick.com favored the Blue Jackets 16-8 overall and 12-3 in the second period. The opportunities were numerous, but Subban denied them all until Foligno finally beat him. “When you play the right way and you focus so much defensively on your game that way, you just want to finally start getting those goals,” Foligno said. “We could feel it coming.” That’s probably because they had come so close to scoring. Anthony Duclair, filling in for Panarin on the top line, was denied off a mini-breakaway in the first period — Subban making a nice skate save at the left post. In the second, defenseman Seth Jones hit the left post and forward Lukas Sedlak hit Subban’s left shoulder with slap shot, inches away from goals each time. 2 Meanwhile, the defense remained solid and Bobrovsky was sharp — especially in the latter half of the third with a 1-0 lead. “I thought that’s where Bob was outstanding and made some great saves there,” coach John Tortorella said. “The first two periods, he really didn’t have to work. We’re involved in these close games and I think we’ve handled ourselves pretty well. Tonight, we found a way to get the result.” 3 Blue Jackets | Right mix of offense, defense proves elusive By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch – December 17, 2018 It’s a balancing act the Blue Jackets might be trying to solve all season. They don’t want to play too many games in which goals are handed out like Oprah handing out cars, but they also would like to score a little more than a couple of goals a game — the way they’ve scored goals all season until a recent dedication to solidifying themselves defensively. Before facing the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday at Nationwide Arena, Columbus had scored 107 goals and ranked eighth in the NHL with 3.34 goals per game. The Jackets also were ranked 23rd in goals allowed, though, yielding 104 for an average of 3.25 per game. Join our group: Join our Blue Jackets Xtra Facebook group for the latest team news “It is a balancing act, for sure,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “We can’t be over-aggressive and give up odd-man rushes. Our job is to keep the puck out of the net. You see, kind of, these more low-scoring type games this past week we’ve been in … we’ve got to find a way to win these. And that’s that.” Prior to hitting a “reset” button of sorts after a 4-0 loss to the Washington Capitals to start the current six-game homestand, the Blue Jackets struggled to prevent turnovers and odd-man rushes. They ironed out a lot of those issues in three games prior to hosting Vegas, but also averaged just 2.33 goals and went 1-1-1. “You don’t need to lose offense and try to score goals by giving up on defense or not concentrating on defense,” coach John Tortorella said. “One hand washes the other there. You play good defense, you’re going to get more offense. And we’re not taking our foot off the pedal in any means, as far as trying to create offense. It’s just making sure when we don’t have the puck that we’re in better position to get it back.” Panarin out About an hour before the opening face-off, the Blue Jackets announced Artemi Panarin wouldn’t play against the Golden Knights because of a lower-body injury. Panarin, who’s listed as day-to-day, participated in the morning skate. It’s unclear what the injury is, when or how it occurred. Anthony Duclair, who’d been scratched in six of the previous eight games and the last two in a row, re-entered the lineup and skated in Panarin’s spot on the top line. “There was a question mark during the (morning) skate,” Tortorella said. “We didn’t think it was going to come to this. I talked to (Duclair) and had him go for warmup, but we found out about an hour or so (before the game). When he came in, we listened to him and just had him tell us how he felt — and he wasn’t going to play.” Moving parts Zach Werenski moved from the third defense pairing to the second unit Saturday against Anaheim, playing that game with David Savard in the Jackets’ 2-1 overtime loss. 4 Tortorella didn’t disclose the defense pairings after the morning skate Monday, but said the main goal is simply getting Werenski straightened out. “I’m not trying to find the right partner for him,” Tortorella said. “We’re trying to help his game. So, this year, we’ve been flexible in trying to find right pairs at certain times during the year. I’m not sure what they’ll be as we move forward.” Quotable “It’s not an ideal line, as far a makeup of a line, but I’m comfortable with the other three. So, it falls out that way a little bit. I’m not sure where we go with it.” — Tortorella, on a forward line of Lukas Sedlak, Alexander Wennberg and Oliver Bjorkstrand 5 Blue Jackets want to stay the course against up-tempo Golden Knights By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch – December 17, 2018 It’s a balancing act the Blue Jackets are still trying to solve. They don’t want to play in too many games where goals are handed out like Oprah Winfrey used to hand out cars, but they’d also like to score a little more than they did last week — including a 2-1 overtime loss Saturday to the Anaheim Ducks. Columbus outplayed Anaheim most of that game and even scored the first goal to lead 1-0 in the first period. The Jackets just couldn’t get another puck past goalie John Gibson and got just one point for their effort, which was better than getting no points in a similar 3-2 loss Tuesday against the Vancouver Canucks.