DETROIT \u2014 With 1:32 remaining in overtime, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski came out of a collision along the end boards with a left skate that was barely hanging on his foot. His laces had been sliced by another player\u2019s skate blade.<\/p>\n
At that point, the Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings were tied, and it\u2019s not a reach to say Columbus\u2019 season was on the line.<\/p>\n
But Werenski\u2019s night wasn\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n
Adam Fantilli\u2019s goal with 16.2 seconds remaining forced overtime, and set the stage for one of the Blue Jackets\u2019 most memorable regular-season wins, not to mention a truly bizarre scenario involving Werenski that sounds more like an anxiety dream than an NHL highlight.<\/p>\n
Werenski, who scored his 22nd goal of the season in the second period, scored the shootout winner in the fifth round to send the Blue Jackets to a 4-3 win over the Red Wings before 17,687 in Little Caesars Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to love our effort,\u201d Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. \u201cWe\u2019re down 3-2 in the last five minutes, man. We didn\u2019t give up, and we kept pushing. So there\u2019s a lot of fight left in this group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets didn\u2019t save their season, necessarily. The next week will decide that. But they certainly kept their season alive, especially since two of the other clubs they\u2019re battling with for a playoff spot \u2014 Ottawa and Philadelphia \u2014 also won Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Just getting a win after a 1-6-1 slide, including six straight losses, was monumental. To win as they did Tuesday could provide a boost for the final four games of the season, continuing Thursday vs. Buffalo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never over till it\u2019s over,\u201d said Blue Jackets center Charlie Coyle, who kept the game alive with a shootout goal in the third round. \u201cWe didn\u2019t sit back. We didn\u2019t. We just kept coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t seem like there was any panic (on Fantilli\u2019s) goal. It was just, \u2018Get the job done and make a good play.’\u201d<\/p>\n
After two icings by the Red Wings, Blue Jackets center Sean Monahan won a faceoff in the Detroit zone with 21 seconds remaining. Kirill Marchenko played it back to Werenski, who skated toward the slot and teed up Fantilli for a shot to his right.<\/p>\n
Fantilli\u2019s one-timer glanced off the shoulder of Red Wings goaltender John Gibson and shot into the net, his 23rd goal of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it got over quick enough (from Werenski), so I knew I was going to have a (shot) late,\u201d Fantilli said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was such a great team win. It was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fantilli said Werenski called him over between overtime and the shootout to show him his damaged skate. Those two, along with half the Blue Jackets\u2019 bench, they said, were shocked when Werenski\u2019s name was called.<\/p>\n
But some work had been done in the meantime.<\/p>\n
Between the end of the overtime and the start of the shootout, Blue Jackets equipment manager Paul DeFazio wrapped Werenski\u2019s boot with heavy packing tape, the best he could do with not enough time to re-lace his boot.<\/p>\n
Kent Johnson, Marchenko, Coyle and Fantilli had already gone in the shootout when Werenski\u2019s name was shouted down the bench by assistant coach Mike Haviland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t really skate, so when they called me, I was like, \u2018Are you guys sure? I\u2019m kind of on one leg here,’\u201d Werenski said. \u201cLike, my foot was in the skate, but it was pretty wobbly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt probably made me feel more calm, to be honest, because I was like, \u2018You know what, nothing to lose, really. Just get on there and fire it. I was calm, and I felt good about it, so, cool moment for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Werenski\u2019s wrist shot sailed past Gibson on his stick side, and the Blue Jackets raced off the bench to meet Werenski in the neutral zone in celebration. Remarkably, it\u2019s the first penalty shot score of Werenski\u2019s career on only his fourth attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cWe can definitely build on this. I feel like we put everything into it, all of our energy, and guys played extremely hard for 65 full minutes. And we\u2019re going to build on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe going to keep going, we\u2019re gonna fight to the end. We\u2019ll see what happens. Yeah, just an awesome performance with a lot of guys playing their games. Everybody was bought in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, the Blue Jackets were as high as fifth in the Eastern Conference and second in the Metro Division. They were riding high under Bowness and preparing for a playoff berth.<\/p>\n
And then it all went away, both the wins and all of their confidence, it seemed. But Tuesday night was a major step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Bowness put his forward lines in a blender \u2014 maybe the garbage disposal is a better metaphor \u2014 and put everybody forward in a new situation. It was done as much to help them defend as to give them all a different look.<\/p>\n
For a night, it did the trick. The Blue Jackets, who had only 26 shots on goal combined in their previous two games, had that total by early in the third period Tuesday. They finished with 35 shots on goal.<\/p>\n
Danton Heinen\u2019s goal only 2:06 into the game was the first by a Blue Jackets forward in 139:59, just one second short of seven periods.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t perfect. There were still plenty of puck struggles, and Marchenko looks as if he\u2019s completely short-circuited under the pressure of a playoff race.<\/p>\n
The ending of Tuesday\u2019s game was storybook, though.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets have suffered so many losses this season where they let late leads slip away, including one in Detroit just before Thanksgiving. But on this night, when they faced an almost must-win situation, they pulled off a massive comeback under major pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully there weren\u2019t too many heart attacks out there tonight,\u201d Coyle said, with a wide grin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 With 1:32 remaining in overtime, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski came out of a collision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-547654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116369987125165414","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547654","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=547654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}