COLUMBUS — Kent Johnson scored at 3:26 of overtime and Jet Greaves stopped all 29 shots he faced as the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the New York Rangers 1-0 on Saturday night at Nationwide Arena, snapping a two-game skid with the team’s most complete performance of the young season.
The winner came on a rush Johnson started from the bench. He hopped on to replace Adam Fantilli as the puck went low to Charlie Coyle on the right side; Coyle moved it across to Zach Werenski, who found Johnson with a cross-ice pass, and Johnson scored on a one-timer from above the right face-off circle. “Charlie made a good play and I was hoping it’d come back to me, and ‘Z’ was so smart, found me there, and perfect weight on the pass, like right in the wheelhouse,” Johnson said. “Such a good pass by Z that definitely made the play, and luckily I hit a good spot.”
For Greaves, the shutout was his first of the season and the fifth in 77 NHL starts, and it backstopped a Columbus team (3-3-0) that had been challenged publicly by coach Rick Bowness after Tuesday’s 7-3 loss to the Florida Panthers. Bowness borrowed a line from Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy after the win: “They have Hall of Famers. We’ve got gamers. We wanted to be gamers tonight. We were. Everyone contributed.”
Bowness pointed to a defense that held New York to roughly 10 or 12 scoring chances at five-on-five. The penalty kill told the same story: after tying a team record by allowing four power-play goals at home against Florida, Columbus went 3-for-3 on the kill against the Rangers, all three in the third period of a scoreless game.
“Our penalty kill was great,” Greaves said. “I thought when there were rebounds around the net, the guys did a good job of clearing it. In a scoreless game like that, at one point the goalies kind of look at one another 200 feet away and wonder who’s going to blink first. It’s fun to be in games like that.”
New York (6-3-1) nearly matched Columbus save for save. Dylan Garand made 28 stops for the Rangers, who dropped their second straight after a 7-1 loss at New Jersey on Thursday but defended far better in Columbus. “I thought it was a great response by us,” Garand said. “I really liked the way we responded. I thought we battled hard, competed hard. That was a good game. That was a good team over there.”
The Rangers also killed all three Columbus power plays and are 29-for-31 (93.5 percent) on the kill this season, but captain J.T. Miller lamented the missed chances in the third: “You get three cracks in the third, you’ve got to help the team right there. We could have used one.”
Johnson’s goal extended his own streak: he has scored in three straight games and has four goals in six games this season, after finishing with seven in 76 games last season. Forward Luca Del Bel Belluz made his season debut for Columbus in place of Dmitri Voronkov, who was benched after one assist through five games.
