It's a victory. There were some things to learn and improve upon. But, let's focus on the result for a minute. The Buffalo Sabres are a talented team that came in having won both of their first two games. Columbus played with a lead and never trailed in this one. They did 'blow' a 2 goal lead but never conceded a go-ahead goal. They blocked 17 shots and played solid team defense 5-on-5 giving BUF only 18 shots. Scoring came from up and down the line up with Cam, Bjork, The Captain and Tex all scoring. There were 2 power play goals converted in 3 attempts.

Improvement is necessary

Buffalo had only 18 shots and forced the Jackets into over time scoring 3 times on those 18 shots. Ryan Murray had an embarrassing give-away with Skinner picking his pocket from behind, then turning around a quickly converting past Korpi. Boone took an ill-advised face-off infraction late in the game providing the Sabres a 6-on-4 power play that ended up finding the back of the net for the game-tying goal. The penalty kill was 2-for-4 (horrible). Korpi again had some issues with puck control and didn't get post-to-post very well.

Bright spots to build from

Powerful power play, scoring twice. Wenn having better vision on the ice and the skill to get the puck where he wanted. He still needs to work on finishing as he had a clear break away where he just pushed it into the goalie's leg pads. Gus finding some chemistry with top line mates Cam and PLD. Tex looked good even demoted from 1st line duties. Foligno played in all three phases (PP, 5-on-5 and PK) and thrived scoring a goal and grinding for the game-winning assist. He had 3 shots, 4 hits, 3 takeaways and won 67% of his face offs.

Team defense was evident. The Jackets had 17 blocked shots by 11 different players. In addition CBJ took 44 shots compared to 18 for BUF.

All-in-all it was a good performance for a solid team that needed to bounce back after a bad weekend. After 3 games if 4 nights the CBJ get a 3-day break before a Friday-Saturday back-to-back that has ANA coming to town and the Jackets traveling to CAR. Both those opponents are undefeated as I write this with ANA @ DET and CAR @ FLA tonight.

Thank you for reading.

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