Blue Jackets finish home slate strong with 5-2 win over Tampa Bay Lightning

Time is running out on their season, but the Blue Jackets skated off winners in their final home game.

Despite missing six lineup regulars against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, the Jackets emptied the tank Thursday night to send their fans home happy from Nationwide Arena.

Paced by Oliver Bjorkstrand’s goal and assist, Columbus downed the Lightning 5-2 and celebrated by acknowledging a crowd of 18,234 with raised sticks at center ice. Elvis Merzlikins made 25 saves to backstop the victory, which moved the Jackets’ record to 37-37-7 heading into their season finale Friday night in Pittsburgh.

"They just played," Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. "It doesn’t surprise me, the effort. I said this morning this is what I expected from this group. They dig in. We’ve done it all year. It’s not like they ever cashed it in or quit. We said we were gonna play right to the end, and we have been."

The Blue Jackets’ other four goals were scored by Jack Roslovic, Jakub Voracek, Cole Sillinger and Andrew Peeke, who sealed it by scoring into an empty-net goal to complete the scoring with 1:51 left in the third period.

Sillinger’s tally was his 16th of the season and gave Columbus a 2-1 lead midway through the second, just 32 seconds after Nikita Kucherov tied it for the Lightning — who downed the Blue Jackets 4-1 on Tuesday in Tampa. The Blue Jackets added two more goals early in the third, increasing the lead to 4-1 on the goals by Roslovic and Bjorkstrand.

Both Lightning goals were scored on power plays, as Kucherov capped the first and Corey Perry scored on the second, pulling Tampa Bay within 4-2 with 3:06 left in the third on Tampa Bay’s seventh man-advantage of the game.

Peeke’s empty-netter completed the scoring and rewarded the hard-nosed defenseman with his second goal of the season, first since Nov. 24 against Winnipeg.

"It’s good to do it at home," Larsen said. "These fans, they mean a lot to these guys. They energize them. They just beat a very good hockey team and they should be real, real happy with that win."

Bjorkstrand surges into Blue Jackets’ goal-scoring lead

After setting up Sillinger’s goal in the second with a perfect feed from behind the net, Bjorkstrand picked up his second point of the game with a tremendous individual effort in the third.

Scooping a loose puck in the neutral zone, he carried into the Lightning zone with speed and ripped a shot past goalie Brian Elliott’s glove for his 27th goal of the season. The tally pushed the Danish winger past Patrik Laine into sole possession of the top spot among Blue Jackets goal-scorers this season.

It must be noted, however, that Laine missed his sixth straight game with an upper-body injury and missed 19 games earlier in the season with a strained oblique. Bjorkstrand has missed just two games while out with COVID-19 in late December.

Laine isn’t expected to return for the season finale in Pittsburgh, which means Bjorkstrand is likely to finish as the Jackets’ top goal-scorer for the second straight year.

Roslovic’s goal-scoring binge still going strong for Blue Jackets

This one was a set play.

Roslovic’s goal 15 seconds into the third period put the Jackets up 3-1 to further push his career-high goal total to 22 for the season, but this goal was more about the planning that went into it.

It was also about making the Lightning pay a price after forward Pat Maroon slashed Merzlikins at the end of the second period. The Jackets got a power play out of it, after Merzlikins and Maroon were called for roughing minors following the slash, and Roslovic capped it with the goal.

He also started the play that led to it by winning the opening draw of the period all the way back to defenseman Jack Bean deep in the Columbus zone. Bean dragged it behind the net, zipped a long pass to Gustav Nyquist along the wall on the left wing and watched as the next pass went to Roslovic skating unchecked up the right wing in the Tampa Bay zone.

Roslovic buried a hard wrist shot that traveled over Elliott’s glove and under the crossbar for his fifth goal in the past five games and 10th in the past nine.

“Pasi had talked to them and they set it up,” Larsen said of assistant coach Pascal Vincent. “What a great play. Sometimes, that’s the advantage of playing a team twice. You know (the Lightning defensemen) were gapping up hard on the two-man drop and they let our stretch guys get in behind. They recognized that early in the game, so it worked. That works one out of every 81 games, so we’ll take it. It was good. It was a big goal.”

Merzlikins wisely declines fight invite from Tampa Bay Lightning enforcer Maroon

Following the scrum that started with Maroon and Merzlikins exchanging slashes with no time left in the second period, the two continued their discourse in the third.

Maroon apparently skated over to Merzlikins with less than a minute left to play and asked the Jackets’ netminder if he wanted to fight. Merzlikins declined, which was a good decision considering Maroon holds huge advantages in size and strength.

“He asked me to go,” Merzlikins said, when asked what the smiling Maroon said to him at the end of the game. “Obviously, I declined because there was just one minute left. I’m gonna be honest. I have maybe zero chances against him. Maybe with somebody else, I would go, but with him, no. Call me soft, whatever you want. I’m gonna take it. I have world championships (in May), so I don’t want to break my nose or anything else.”

Merzlikins has angered opposing players before by chirping at them after saves, so he’s no stranger to tense situations during post-whistle scrums. Being asked to fight by the opposing team’s enforcer, however, is a bit of a new twist.

Larsen’s is glad that his goalie didn’t accept Maroon’s dance invitation, for the obvious health implication and for what it shows about Merzlikins’ maturation as an NHL starter.

“That’s huge growth right there,” Larsen said, laughing. “That’s the wise decision, for sure.”

Andrew Peeke rewarded for season’s worth of bumps, bruises

Peeke’s goal put a smile on his face and his two blocked shots – plus the other 166 he’d blocked this season – put the Jackets’ postgame celebration Kepi hat in his hands.

It was the rugged defenseman’s second goal of the season and first since Nov. 24 against the Winnipeg Jets, which was also scored at Nationwide Arena into an empty net. Along with his blocked shots, Peeke added two more hits in this game to bring his total to 191 — which is second only on the team to Sean Kuraly’s 240.

Peeke has also been in the middle of many post-whistle confrontations, has fought twice because of his increased physicality and has carved out an important role for himself on the Jackets’ blue line.

Zipping the puck into a vacated net from the red line was fitting reward for a breakout season the Jackets needed from their second-round pick in 2016.

“He’s one guy that stands out for me that’s taken a really big step,” Larsen said. “I just had the other coach (Jon Cooper) ask me about him. ‘Who’s that Andrew Peeke?’ He’s getting noticed, and it’s not because he’s scoring. (Cooper) wasn’t commenting on the empty-net goal. It’s because of his intangibles.”

Blue Jackets survive seven Lightning power plays

The Lightning entered the game ranked eighth in the NHL on power plays with a 23.5% rate of success (59 of 251).

They added two more Thursday, but went 2 for 7 and couldn’t turn nearly five extra minutes of power-play time over the Jackets’ 5:42 into enough goals for a win. The Lightning sizzled with a 28.6 percent success rate in the game, but the Blue Jackets were the team that left the building feeling good about the five they thwarted.

“We gave up seven power plays tonight against a power play that is scary when you give them three,” Larsen said. “(Merzlikins) had to come with some big saves and he did. I thought we killed a lot of those very well, but he stood in there when we needed him most and was able to make some big-time saves when we needed him.”

bhedger@dispatch.com

@BrianHedger

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets douse Tampa Bay Lightning in home finale