John Tortorella thinks Blue Jackets ‘put a dent in Rask’ in Game 5

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From the first period of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference second round, when Artemi Panarin scored Columbus’ only goal in a 4- 1 loss, through the third period of Game 5, when Seth Jones scored to cut the Bruins’ lead to 2-1, Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask had a shutout streak of 101 minutes, 47 seconds.

Jones’ goal started a third-period rally that saw the Blue Jackets tie the score 3-3 before the Bruins pulled out a 4-3 win to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series.

Heading into Game 6 on Monday in Columbus, Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella, who’s already on record as guaranteeing his team will force a Game 7, explained that he thinks Columbus’ late-game outburst in Game 5 was a positive sign.

“I think one of the bigger points in our last game, in Game 5, is that we dented their goalie,” Tortorella told the media at Nationwide Arena. “I think that was very important. I think they dented our goalie, we’ve dented their goalie in that third period, which is very important going into Game 6.”

Rask finished with 33 saves on 36 shots in Game 5 and now has a .936 save percentage through five games of this series. Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves on 36 shots for the Blue Jackets, and has a .925 save percentage in five games.

LIVE: Torts meets with the media this morning before Game 6 against the Bruins. #CBJ https://t.co/hKjRxcdD8Q

— x-Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) May 6, 2019

The Bruins’ top players came alive in Game 5 with David Krejci, Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak combining for four goals and three assists, all at even strength. The Blue Jackets’ top offensive players have not fared as well the past two games, with Panarin’s goal in Game 4 the only score Columbus has gotten from its top six forwards (and that one shouldn’t have counted because of the puck hitting the netting moments before). Matt Duchene has two goals in this series, both on the power play.

“Offensive people, it’s a situation of you need to keep patience in a game,” Tortorella said. “Sometimes when you don’t have a play you just don’t make that play, you get it behind the D and we get our forechecking going. Other times the plays are there. It’s their call. We’re playing against a team that checks pretty well. We just need to not lose ourselves, and I think we have the past couple of games in certain times in the game in some situational patience.

“But when we talk about patient it does not mean we shouldn’t be aggressive. And I do, I think we need to push it a little bit here. And not so much making east-west plays, tic-tac-toe plays because they’re not going to be there. The Bruins are in the middle of the ice, they’re going to be in the middle of the ice. It’s about pushing them behind them and getting to work there and I think as we, in some of the good minutes of our last game, that’s where we’re finding some offense.”

Asked about secondary scorer Ryan Dzingel netting his first goal of the series in Game 5, Tortorella returned to the theme of the Blue Jackets figuring out Rask.

 “The biggest thing is I think we put a dent in Rask coming into Game 6 here, and that’s so important for offensive people,” the coach said.

 

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