COLUMBUS, Ohio — No Pierre-Luc Dubois? No problem.
Less than three hours after their former No. 1 center was a centerpiece in a blockbuster trade with the Winnipeg Jets, the Blue Jackets handed the Tampa Bay Lightning their first loss of the season Saturday afternoon at Nationwide Arena.
Powered by three goals in the first period and goalie Elvis Merzlikins’ 30 saves, the Jackets won 5-2 against the defending Stanley Cup champions to prove they can still compete with elite teams without Dubois — who’d requested the trade after signing a two-year contract extension before training camp.
The Jackets acquired two high-skill forwards from the Jets, who gave up elite goal-scorer Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic, who’s from Columbus, to get Dubois.
Nick Foligno, Mikhail Grigorenko, Vladislav Gavrikov and Zach Werenski scored the first four goals for the Blue Jackets (2-2-2) and Eric Robinson scored into an empty net with 1:48 left to seal the victory.
Victor Hedman and Ondre Palat scored goals in the first period for the Lightning (3-1-0), who got 23 saves from goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Most of the scoring happened in a first period that saw the puck go into the net five times — three for the Blue Jackets and two for the Lightning.
Hedman and Foligno scored matching goals to start the scoring, with the Lightning star defenseman making it 1-0 at 4:10 and the Blue Jackets’ captain countering 17 seconds later — scoring his third goal of the season off Cam Atkinson’s rebound.
The Blue Jackets scored the next two.
Grigorenko scored his first as a Blue Jacket at 10:03 and Gavrikov’s first of the season made it 3-1 with 58.6 seconds left, but Tampa Bay pulled within 3-2 on a power-play goal by Palat 45 seconds later — scored with 13.6 seconds left on the clock.
It felt like the teams might trade goals all afternoon.
Instead, after neither team scored in the second, the score remained 3-2 to start the third. That was familiar sight for the Jackets, who haven’t been separated by more than a goal starting the final period in any of their six games.
As they did in a 3-2 victory Monday in Detroit — also an afternoon start — the Jackets pushed their lead to a two-goal margin early in the third on Werenski’s first goal of the season. The offensively-gifted defenseman made it 4-2 at 6:34, setting up for a backhand feed by Alexandre Texier and one-timing the puck past Vasilevskiy on the far side.
Boone Jenner picked up the secondary assist on the goal, which was followed at the end by Robinson’s first of the season into the empty cage — giving the Jackets 13 players who recorded at least one point in the game.
