Two teams fighting for wild card playoffs in their respective conferences will meet when Vancouver Canucks visits the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night.
Vancouver (34-26-12, 80 points) defeated the New York Islanders 5-2 on Wednesday evening for its second straight victory and is in the thick of the Western Conference Wild card race.
Columbus (32-29-9, 73 points) comes from a 4-3 victory against the islands on Monday night that ended a six-match losing line (0-5-1). Blue Jackets remain in a group of teams chasing the second wild card in the eastern conference.
Kiefer Sherwood had two goals and one assist for canucks against the islanders. Drew O’Connor and Pius Suter each had two assists, and Thatcher Demko made 26 rescues for Canucks, which scored the last four goals in the game.
Vancouver is 2-1-1 through four matches in a six-game.
“It’s been a long journey, and I don’t know if we found our legs,” Quinn Hughes said about Vancouver’s game early in the game. “We just knew it would not be one of these games for us. We knew we had to play smart. … Every game is like a must win, so there is no foot from the gas here. We just have to restore mentally and physically.”
Demko won his second straight match since his return from a lower bodily injury that kept him out for over six weeks.
Vancouver has six matches against teams that currently occupy a playoffs over their last 10 races.
“These are all must-win games,” Demko said. “There are not many left, so we only do what we can to stay in this, find different ways to win every night. We will continue to push here to the end and see if we can push a couple more.”
Adam Fantilli, Kirill Marchenko and Boone Jenner made in Blue Jacket’s victory against New York, and Elvis Merzlikins made 30 rescues. Sean Monahan had two assists in his first game back after missing 28 matches due to a wrist injury. Marchenko’s goal was his first point in six matches.
Columbus was exceeded 17-6 during the first period and went back to the dressing room down 2-0.
“The first period was not at all,” Jenner said. “For some reason we didn’t play our game. We turned pucks over and lost battles. We talked about it, us in this room, that we have not accepted it all year. We knew we had to get better.”
In addition to getting Monahan back, defender Erik Gudbranson returned after missing 66 matches with a shoulder injury.
“You add the two guys to your dressing room, it will help you,” Jenner said. “They have struggled extremely hard, we have seen from first and foremost to come back and come back at a crucial time of year.”
The Jenner band the game with a short -handed goal, the ninth this season for Blue Jackets.
Suter scored twice and Canucks collected from two goals down to beat the visiting Blue Jackets 5-2 on December 6. Brock Boeser, Sherwood and Jake Debrus also made for Vancouver.
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