ST. PAUL, MINN. — Playing their second straight game against a team hosting its home opener, the Blue Jackets skated off with a 7-4 victory on a wild night Oct. 11 at Grand Casino Arena.
Facing the Minnesota Wild, their NHL expansion cousin that’s also celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Jackets brushed off a blown 2-0 lead to even their record at 1-1-0 heading back to Columbus for their own home opener Oct. 13 at Nationwide Arena.
Kirill Marchenko led the way with three goals for his fourth career hat trick, Zach Werenski and Boone Jenner each added three points with a goal and two assists, including Jenner’s 200th career goal, and goalie Elvis Merzlikins made 48 saves on 52 shots to win his season debut.
The only thing that kept the Wild in the game were power plays. They got eight of them on eight Blue Jackets penalties and scored all four of their goals with a man-advantage. According to Hockey-Reference, it’s the first time the Blue Jackets have ever won a road game while allowing four power-play goals and only the second time they’ve ever won under that scenario.
“We shoot ourselves in the foot a little bit, but I like how we handled it,” Werenski said. “I like how we battled. Our power play scored a goal, we got efforts from everybody and Elvis played great. I feel like when you can have nights like that and still come out with two points, it’s a successful night.”
Miles Wood, acquired in a summer trade along with Charlie Coyle, scored his first goal as a Blue Jacket early in the first to give Columbus a 1-0 lead. Coyle notched his first assist and point on Jenner’s goal into an empty net, and was one of five Blue Jackets who notched points with assists.
Unlike their 2-1 loss Oct. 9 in Nashville to open the season, the Blue Jackets scrapped through the first two periods to prevent the Wild from breaking the game open.
Minnesota got five power plays in the first two periods, three more in the third and on 50% of their eight man-advantages. The Wild (1-1-0) added two more power-play goals in the third, including rookie defenseman Zeev Buium’s first career goal to make it 5-3 with 10:06 left.
Jenner shot a puck off Fantilli and into the net to make it 6-3 on Fantilli’s goal with 9:13 left in the third, Minnesota cut it to 6-4 with Kirill Kaprizov’s second power-play goal of the game and Jenner scored the game’s final goal into the Wild’s vacated net with 1:26 left to seal the win.
“It was different, obviously,” Jenner said. “A lot of momentum swings, and we want to stay out of the (penalty box). We gave them way too many chances on their power play, but in the second I think we kept our composure pretty good when a lot of things were happening that were not good for us. i just really liked our response.”
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social