{"id":446038,"date":"2026-02-05T00:05:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/446038\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T00:05:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T00:05:44","slug":"shutout-gives-columbus-blue-jackets-elvis-merzlikins-olympic-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/446038\/","title":{"rendered":"Shutout gives Columbus Blue Jackets’ Elvis Merzlikins Olympic boost"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elvis Merzlikins<\/a> can almost devote his full attention to the 2026 Winter Olympics<\/a> in Milan-Cortina, Italy.<\/p>\n

More: Columbus Blue Jackets’ Elvis Merzlikins takes odd in-game water break<\/a><\/p>\n

First, the goalie<\/a> must watch teammate Jet Greaves backstop the Blue Jackets<\/a> into the league\u2019s Olympics break. Columbus will be looking to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> on Feb. 4 at Nationwide Arena for their seventh straight win.<\/p>\n

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Merzlikins handled the Blue Jackets’ net during the team’s sixth in a row, that victory coming Feb. 3 at Prudential Center<\/a> in Newark, New Jersey, where he made 24 saves for his first shutout of the season and 12th of his career.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets 3-0 win over the Devils on Feb. 3 marked goaltender Elvis Merzlikins’ first shutout of the season.<\/p>\n

Barring injury or illness preventing Greaves from playing against Chicago, Merzlikins\u2019 next game will be for Latvia in Milan, Italy. It\u2019s an opportunity he\u2019s dreamed about for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I\u2019m getting ready for [the] Olympics now,\u201d Merzlikins said on the FanDuel Sports Network\u2019s postgame show. \u201cIt was hard today because I already was \u2026 mentally, I was one foot that was already there, but I had to dial into this game and win these points because they are really important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Blue Jackets (28-20-7) improved to 10-1-0 in their past 11 games, 9-1-10 since coach Rick Bowness replaced Dean Evason<\/a> and have clawed their way back into the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. Merzlikins and Greaves are playing key roles in the turnaround, along with a team more dedicated to reducing goals allowed.<\/p>\n

The Jackets hunt pucks with more consistency and intensity now, erase shooting lanes from areas where most goals are scored and put themselves in harm\u2019s way to help their goalies. Adam Fantilli showed that dedication by blocking a shot in the waning seconds against the Devils to notch the shutout, risking injury with a three-goal lead.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/p>\n

Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins made 24 saves against the Devils on Feb. 3.<\/p>\n

Merzlikins thanked him, effusively, for doing it.<\/p>\n

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Four years earlier, in the same building, a different Blue Jackets group with some of the same players preceded a trip to Helsinki, Finland, by hanging Merzlikins out to dry in a 7-1 loss to the Devils, who outshot them by a whopping 53-21.<\/p>\n

That was as ugly as it gets in the NHL and former coach Brad Larsen held a lengthy postgame team meeting before reporters were allowed into the locker room. What a difference four years and four additional head coaches can make, huh?<\/p>\n

Speaking of coaches, Merzlikins got a hug from Bowness in the locker room celebration, was given the team\u2019s player of the game donkey hat that honors Johnny Gaudreau’s memory and can now, almost, fully cast his attention to the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s exciting,\u201d Merzlikins said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge honor to play for your country, and especially to see the boys [for Latvia]. There [are] most of the guys who I grew up playing hockey [with], since I was 15, you know? \u2026 I keep watching on Instagram the [Olympic] village and all the accounts of other countries, so I\u2019m super excited and pumped. I can\u2019t wait to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger<\/a> can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com<\/a> and @BrianHedger.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets’ Elvis Merzlikins now focused on Olympics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elvis Merzlikins can almost devote his full attention to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy. More: Columbus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3189,1942,3644,5180,96,897,230,5179,7819,5,693,3265,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-446038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","9":"tag-adam-fantilli","10":"tag-blue-jackets","11":"tag-bluejackets","12":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","13":"tag-columbus","14":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","15":"tag-columbusbluejackets","16":"tag-elvis-merzlikins","17":"tag-hockey","18":"tag-jet-greaves","19":"tag-johnny-gaudreau","20":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116015106215442145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}