The goal was to find themselves.
More specifically, the Blue Jackets’ primary objective Thursday night at Nationwide Arena was to locate where they’d misplaced the unmistakable identity they’d worked hard to forge the past couple of years as a team nobody enjoyed playing.
“We’ve talked about things we need to do,” coach John Tortorella said after a practice Wednesday that included him imploring his team to search for their missing reputation. “We know what our identity is and we need to get back to that, of being a team that is just hard to play against.”
As it turned out, the Jackets didn’t exactly re-establish themselves as that type of team against the Dallas Stars — who drubbed them 6-3 on Tuesday — but they did make amends with a hard-earned 4-3 victory to split a two-game series against the NHL’s runner-up from last summer’s Stanley Cup playoffs.
Cam Atkinson netted the 200th goal of his NHL career for a 4-2 lead early in the third period, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Jack Roslovic had a goal and assist each, and Patrik Laine scored his first goal as a Blue Jacket since joining the team along with Roslovic last month in a blockbuster trade that sent Pierre-Luc Dubois plus a 2022 third-round pick to the Winnipeg Jets.
Joonas Korpisalo was razor sharp in net, making 25 saves in a game that Elvis Merzlikins was expected to start prior to being injured in practice Wednesday.
That practice elicited a plea from Tortorella during one stoppage for the Blue Jackets to find their identity in the rematch against the Stars, playing with the kind of grit and neutral-zone effectiveness that has flummoxed a lot of their opponents the past two years.
“I do not think we’re hard enough to play against and we’re playing against a very hard team again (Thursday), a very good team,” Tortorella said after the practice Wednesday. “It’s a good challenge for us just to be harder in certain areas.”
As it turned out, it was a spotty performance.
At times they looked like the Blue Jackets who won 5-2 here last month against the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning — just hours after trade for Laine and Roslovic was completed. At other times, they were a bit of a wreck trying to clear their own zone and allowed the Stars to pin the action into the Columbus end of the ice for long stretches.
Those could’ve easily resulted in multiple goals for the Stars, but Korpisalo’s work in net was the biggest reason that didn’t happen.
Bjorkstrand and Roslovic scored their goals in the first period, the including the latter scoring his first goal with his hometown NHL team to make it 2-0 with 3:01 left, but Dallas wouldn’t stop clawing back.
Roope Hintz capped a power play early in the second period to cut the Columbus edge to 2-1. Laine then made it 3-1 at 7:50, backhanding a loose puck past goalie Anton Khudobin (21 saves), but Jason Dickinson got that one back for the Stars, too — making it 3-2 off a late odd-man rush following a Blue Jackets turnover.
Atkinson scored 3:42 into the third, putting the Jackets up 4-2 on his milestone goal, but Jamie Benn cut it to 4-3 almost eight minutes later — backhanding a shot past Korpisalo from the low slot with 8:59 left to set up a tense finish.
The Stars continued to push, Korpisalo continued denying them the equalizer and Boone Jenner was eventually called for tripping Hintz on a late charge to the Columbus net. That gave the Stars a 6-on-4 power play edge after Khudobin vacated the Dallas net for the final minute, but the Blue Jackets staved it off — earning two big points on a night they were largely outplayed.
