With the painful loss to Edmonton and Brandon Dubinsky going on IR, everyone wanted to see what Columbus would do when the Islanders came to town for a major Metropolitan division match up.
With Sergei Bobrovsky back in net and several shuffles to the lineup, including Boone Jenner moving to center, the first period was a textbook display of how to jump on an opponent who had just suffered a fairly nasty loss of their own the previous night. With Zach Werenski and Seth Jones leading the charge, the Blue Jackets got into the Islanders’ zone, but couldn’t get shots on net until Artemi Panarin went deep and hit Werenski with a quick setup as the “rover” cheated into the slot.