Blue Jackets Get Beat At Home By The Red Hot Seattle Kraken

The Seattle Kraken came into Columbus riding an 8-game winning streak, so beating them would always be tough. Instead of winning, they handed Seattle a franchise-best 9th straight victory.

The Blue Jackets came out hot, scoring twice in the first period, both by Ivan Provorov. Unfortunately for the CBJ, Seattle answered back every time they scored. By the end of the first period, the score was tied at two.

Kirill Marchenko scored on the power play 4:43 into the second to take a 3-2 lead, but yet again the Kraken would tie it up. And then with just over six minutes to play in the second, old friend Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on their own power play to take the lead 4-3. From then on, they wouldn’t look back.

Jared McCann and Brian Dumoulin scored just over two minutes apart in the third period to make it 6-3, and that would be just about it. Emil Bemstrom did score to make it 6-4 with 7 and a half minutes to go, but by that point, it was over. The Kraken would score one more time to make it 7-4 to put the Blue Jackets out of their misery. The Jackets have now lost 4 of 5 in January.

Daniil Tarasov did not play well against Seattle. This comes on the heels of Pascal Vincent going public and saying that they’re playing Tarasov instead of Elvis Merzlikins because they want to know what they have in Tarasov going forward. This upset Elvis understandably.

On the loss to Seattle Tarasov says, “I wanted to be sharp and help the guys. I apologize for this performance on a Saturday night in front of this full crowd.” He went on to say “I’m really appreciative for this opportunity. For me, it means a lot. And the last two games, I was not that good. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes in my game the last two games. Just keep it going. Take the lessons from these last two starts. It’s kind of tough losses. But I should take some lessons from this and keep going.”

Final Stats

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Player Notes

• Ivan Provorov had 2 first-period goals, pushing his total to 4 for the season, and his points total to 23. 
• Kirill Marchenko had 2 points on the night and now has 24 points on the season. 
• Johnny Gaudreau, with an assist now has 100 career points with the Jackets. He also has 26 points this season.

Team Notes

• Columbus is now 5-6-3 in the last 14 home games.
• With 2 first-period goals, the Jackets now have 43 such goals on the season.
• CBJ defensemen had 5 points on the night. They have 102 points in 43 games this season.  
• Jackets rookies now have 54 points in 43 games with Adam Fantilli’s assist. 

Next Up: The Jackets are back at home against the Vancouver Canucks on Monday at 1 p.m.

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Join Jason Newland’s Columbus Blue Jacket page on Bunches, a new app that connects sports fans. Also, you can watch a new YouTube game show about the Blue Jackets, Around the Fifth Line.