COLUMBUS, Ohio — Three seasons ago, the Columbus Blue Jackets tried to get through an NHL season without a tough guy on the roster, and they paid dearly.
By the end of the season, they were getting bullied with regularity, including two games in March that season against the Minnesota Wild. It was ugly. It was difficult to watch, frankly.
The coach back then for Minnesota was Dean Evason. The Blue Jackets’ response the following offseason was to trade for winger Mathieu Olivier in a draft-pick deal with the Nashville Predators.
It was impossible to miss the irony Friday, when the Blue Jackets played fast and physical in a 5-2 win over the Calgary Flames in Nationwide Arena, a display that clearly invigorated a post-Thanksgiving crowd that spent the final minute of regulation chanting O-H-I-O!
Evason is now the Blue Jackets’ coach, and his new team played his style to a T — fast in all three zones, relentless on the puck, and unflinching in sticking up for yourself and your teammates. Just as it did when Evason coached the Wild, that speed often led to confrontation.
And that’s where Olivier stepped in, winning two decisive fights and skating off the ice with a king-of-the-jungle, two-hand pump-up that thrilled a crowd of 17,035. The Blue Jackets are on a 4-0-1 uptick, their first five-game point streak since April 25-May 5, 2021.
“Our whole thought process was to play fast,” Evason said. “There was some physicality in the game and we held our own, stuck up for each other, and that’s the right thing to do.
“I think … well, I know our team will do that all the time. That’s a standard. But we really liked how we played in all three zones.”
Adam Fantilli, who had gone 13 games without a goal, led the way offensively with two goals, while Zach Werenski and Kent Johnson added goals. Werenski’s second-period goal extended his points streak to a career-long seven games. He has 5-9-14 and a plus-11 rating in that span.
Until Kirill Marchenko scored an empty-net goal with 1:40 to play, all of the Blue Jackets’ goals were scored by former Michigan Wolverines, who typically aren’t made to feel welcome in Columbus, Ohio (especially less than 24 hours away from The Game).
But the biggest cheers Friday were sparked when the play turned nasty, and the Blue Jackets more than held their own.
At 3:46 of the second period, Blue Jackets defenseman Jake Christiansen stepped into a thunderous shoulder-to-chest hit on Calgary’s Andrei Kuzmenko at the blue line.
Calgary’s Martin Pospisil stepped in and challenged Christiansen, who obliged, even though he’d never been in a fight and had just been on the ice for a 1-minute, 45-second shift, about twice the normal shift length for a defenseman.
“I probably can’t express how much I liked it,” Evason said with a smile.
About eight minutes later, Olivier went into the corner with Calgary’s Joel Hanley and checked him hard from behind, prompting Pospisil to respond again. Olivier was all too willing to accept, and the fight did not go well for Pospisil.
While Olivier was pounding Pospisil, the Flames’ Brayden Pachal grabbed Olivier and held back his arms, allowing Pospisil to land two punches. The Blue Jackets were furious that Pachal wasn’t penalized for being the third guy in on a fight.
“It’s so dangerous,” Evason said. “(Officials) stated that it wasn’t enough for a third-man-in penalty. But Ollie gets his right arm tied up and takes two solid punches to the face that he cannot defend. He takes two off his face. It’s so dangerous. I don’t know how that’s allowed to happen.”
Christiansen’s fight and Olivier’s first fight were just the undercard, however.
On Olivier’s first shift after the fight, Calgary’s Ryan Lomberg skated up next to him before a faceoff for a conversation. They weren’t exchanging turkey tips.
“It was (about) my hit,” Olivier said. “He felt it needed to be addressed. I don’t mind it.”
When the puck dropped, four gloves went sailing. Olivier pummeled Lomberg, whose long hair whipped with each of Olivier’s heavy rights. As Olivier left the ice, he leaned back on one skate, looked up to the crowd and thrust his arms up in the air, only amplifying the crowd noise.
There was another skirmish early in the third, when goaltender Elvis Merzlikins came roaring out of his crease with fists flying after Calgary’s MacKenzie Weegar appeared to jab his stick between Merzlikins’ pads. Merzlikins had to be pulled away and pinned against the wall by a linesman in order to restore peace.
“Every goalie knows that it’s not a nice feeling,” Merzlikins said. “I just reacted. He totally deserved it. There was no need to do what he did. I don’t care. I just reacted.”
Evason didn’t mind it, either. He expressed that, he said, in a brief interaction with officials after Merzlikins was given the only penalty out of the incident.
“I asked three officials the same thing: what would you do if you got speared in the … that area? What would you do? How would you react? I don’t blame Elvis.”
As goaltenders don’t serve penalties, the Blue Jackets sent Adam Fantilli to the penalty box in Merzlikins’ sted. Like most things on this night, it worked out very well for Columbus.
When the penalty expired, Fantilli jumped from the penalty box to join a two-on-one rush with Marchenko, who feathered a perfect pass through traffic across the hashes, setting Fantilli up perfectly.
“I didn’t have to even move my stick,” Fantilli said. “Right on the blade.”
The Blue Jackets (10-9-3) didn’t gain their 10th win last season until Dec. 14. It feels like they’re light years ahead of last year’s pace, not just two weeks.
(Photo: Aaron Doster / Imagn Images)
