COLUMBUS
Jack Johnson Jersey , Ohio (AP) Short winning streaks are nothing to the Columbus Blue Jackets. They like getting victories in bunches.Sergei Bobrovsky
stopped 33 shots for his fifth shutout of the season, Cam Atkinson had a goal
and an assist, and the Blue Jackets shut out the Florida Panthers 4-0 on
Thursday night for their 10th straight win.Pierre-Luc Dubois had two assists for
the Blue Jackets, who improved to 42-28-5 and joined Philadelphia (1984-86) and
Pittsburgh (2010-13) as the only NHL franchises to record 10-game win streaks in
consecutive seasons.The shutout was the 24th of Bobrovsky’s career and his
seventh straight win. Sonny Milano, Seth Jones and Thomas Vanek – into an empty
net – also scored for Columbus, which moved into a second-place tie in the
Metropolitan Division with idle Pittsburgh, each with 89 points.”We were
disciplined, we were smart with the puck,” Bobrovsky said. ”We played as a unit,
one group, defense and offense. That’s how the game was built up, little
moments. We were disciplined, we were smart, we were together.”Florida dropped
to 37-28-7. With 10 games left in the season, the Panthers remained a point
behind the idle New Jersey Devils for a playoff spot.After a scoreless first,
Atkinson got Columbus on the board at 59 seconds of the second period, thanks to
Artemi Panarin, who stole the puck just outside the blue line and provided a
perfect feed. Atkinson beat Roberto Luongo with a one-timer low on the right
side for his 18th goal of the season, while Panarin recorded his team-leading
44th assist.The Blue Jackets made it 2-0 just 2:19 later
Womens Josh Anderson Jersey , when Matt Calvert dug the puck out of the left corner and fed Milano for his 13th goal, a top-shelf sniper shot driving
through the left circle. Pierre-Luc Dubois earned his 23rd assist and Calvert
his 14th.”The game was lost in the (first) 10 minutes of the second period,”
Panthers coach Bob Boughner said. ”They came at us hard and we made some
mistakes. We hit a few posts. They get a 3-0 lead with a goalie like that, it’s
hard to come back.”The Blue Jackets’ third goal came at 5:42 of the third
period, 10 seconds after a center-ice scrum sent Florida’s Frank Vatrano off on
a double-minor for roughing and interference, and Columbus’ Zach Werenski off
for slashing. Jones, back after missing three games with an upper-body injury,
scored his 15th of the season with a slap shot from just inside the blue line.It
was Jones’ 50th point and sixth power-play goal of the season for a team-leading
19th point with a man advantage. Dubois recorded his ninth multipoint game. The
goal ended Florida’s streak of 24 straight penalty kills over 10 games.Vanek’s
empty-netter at 17:35 of the third, his 21st goal of the season, made it
4-0.Despite his team’s success, Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella is aiming to
keep his the Blue Jackets focused on the bigger prize: a trip to the playoffs
for the second straight season.”Nine teams are trying to get in, in both
conferences, and we are one of them,” he said. ”That far outweighs any thinking
about streaks.”NOTES: Columbus’ David Savard played in his 400th NHL game. …
Defenseman Alexander Petrovic returned to Florida’s lineup after missing three
of the last four games with a lower-body injury. … Jack Johnson and Brandon
Dubinsky were both healthy scratches for Columbus. The Blue Jackets have not
lost since March 2.UP NEXTPanthers: host the Coyotes on Saturday.Blue Jackets:
host the Blues on Saturday. Ben Scrivens keeps trying to figure out what he is
doing wrong.And it has nothing to do with playing hockey.Every once in a while
in the Kontinental Hockey League, the former NHL goaltender offends someone and
has to figure out what Russian superstition or custom he broke. There are
plenty.”You’re supposed to bring cake to the rink on your birthdays,” said
Scrivens, a Canadian. ”If you step on someone’s shoe, you’re supposed to put
your foot out and they step back. It’s like a tit for tat type of thing. They’re
super superstitious and so they have a lot: you can’t whistle in doors, you
can’t shake hands through a doorway. And obviously you would never just guess
these things
Adam Henrique Jersey , so you have to make the mistake.”Dozens of North American players returned to the KHL last week after playing in the Olympics,
where they learned different cultural lessons in South Korea. For foreigners
unaccustomed to Russia and other places in the KHL, life on and off the ice can
be a bit of a shock that never quite goes away.”Pretty much every day there’s
something that I shake my head and I can’t believe what’s going on,” said
American forward Ryan Stoa, who is in his fourth KHL season after stints with
the Colorado Avalanche and Washington Capitals. ”There’s pretty much something
every day that I can’t believe that just happened.”That’s the KHL, where former
NHL defenseman James Wisniewski said, ”The normal’s abnormal and the abnormal’s
normal.”That explains a lot, like when a sheep was sacrificed on the ice earlier
this season before a Barys Astana practice in Kazakhstan, which made a few North
American players vomit at the sight of it.”That’s probably one of the weirdest
things I’ve ever heard of, honestly, in hockey,” Canadian forward Gilbert Brule
said. ”I couldn’t believe when I heard that.”Sheep sacrifice is up there in the
pantheon of the unbelievable in the KHL, though there are countless stories
about everyday life in what’s considered the second-best hockey league in the
world. Wisniewski said saw players giving themselves their own IVs and Wojtek
Wolski keeps notes in his phone of the strange stuff he has seen so he doesn’t
forget to share stories with friends back home.”You’ve got to be ready for
anything,” Wolski said. ”I always say anything is possible and everything seems
impossible at the same time and in the same day, in the same hour.”Life in the
KHL also means some more serious issues. Some players have not gotten paid
because teams can’t make payroll. Old planes being used for travel came to light
again when 44 people were killed in 2011 in the tragic Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
crash.Scrivens said he can live with 99 percent of the cultural, personal and
professional things that bother North American players and tries to ignore the
rest.Former New York Rangers defenseman Matt Gilroy’s first day in the KHL was
also his birthday, and his new teammates all wondered where the cake was. He and
Stoa have gotten used to the Russian custom of shaking hands with everyone each
day if you didn’t sleep under the same roof the night before – from players to
the bus and Zamboni drivers to rink attendants.So much for keeping germs in
check.”I think guys get sick quite a bit because of it,” Scrivens said. At the
Olympics, which saw an outbreak of norovirus
Womens Andrew Cogliano Jersey , officials recommended players fist-bump instead of shaking hands.Asked if he’d been stiffed on pay, Scrivens hedged by
saying: ”I don’t have any stories that haven’t already been publicized. I don’t
have any worse stories than what’s already out there.” Some players were not
willing to share stories because they either still have KHL contracts or could
return to the league in the next few years, but Chris Bourque said, ”Every story
you hear is true.”That includes the strenuous two-month training camps.”Training
camp is one of the hardest things there that I’ve probably ever been through in
my life,” Brule said. ”You’re basically going for almost two months straight,
two-a-days, three-a-days. You’re on the ice twice, you’re working out all day,
you get a break for lunch and you’re back at it all afternoon.”For all the
horror stories and head-scratching, Stoa pointed out that some guys have
positive experiences in the KHL. Playing for Helsinki-based Jokerit or
high-powered and wealthy SKA St. Petersburg or CSKA Moscow is a much different
experience than living in Togliatti, Magnitogorsk or Chelyabinsk.Gilroy said the
language barrier is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome, though teams have
interpreters to help. Some practices are run in Russian, but for all the
craziness that goes on around them, North American players have one place they
feel just fine.”When you’re on the ice, it’s kind of all the same game all over
the world,” Gilroy said. ”You feel the most comfortable when you’re on the ice.
Off the ice, you’re kind of a fish out of water, but when you’re playing the
games it was the most comfortable you could be.”
