Jackets Need to Use Common "Sens" Against Ottawa to Maintain Playoff Spot

After an impressive win in Philadelphia, Columbus takes on the Ottawa Senators at Nationwide.

The Jackets beat the Flyers 5-3 Thursday night. Three goals from Columbus in the first period, then another two goals in the second and third period to bring home a hattie.

Bjorkstrand started off the scoring halfway through the opening period helped by Seth Jones and Sonny Milano. Not even 15 seconds later, Boone Jenner scores his ninth of the season. Philadelphia Captain, Claude Giroux was able to cut the deficit in half. Columbus quickly responded with a goal from Cam Atkinson.

Second period and Shayne Gotsbehere scored for Philly 14 seconds in, and Andrew MacDonald was also able to score. Between them, Cam was able to get his 15th goal of season and ended the game with one more goal to get this season's first hat trick. With any luck, he can repeat his success tonight, and get another hattie so his name can go on the Hat Trick Memorial.

Columbus now has a solid hold of their wildcard spot tying with the Flyers at 81 points (Columbus has the second wildcard spot due to a tie breaker). They trail the New Jersey Devils by a single point and the Pittsburgh Penguins by 6.

The Senators are out of the playoffs so there's not a whole lot of pressure on them which can be good or bad for the Jackets. Columbus can't underestimate them just because they won't be playing post season hockey. There's only 11 games left and every little point counts with how close the standings are, and forward Matt Calvert agrees.

"Obviously, we'd like to get ourselves top three in the division. It's a little safer when you're in that spot. But it's going to be interesting. In the final [11] games, we play a lot of opponents that are right near us in the standings and it's going to be a lot of fun going forward. This is what you want. You want meaningful hockey games."

Though the season hasn't been the greatest for Columbus, and certain veterans haven't been playing their best, it's nice to see them pulling it out when the games really matter. Some of the veterans realized they weren't doing well, and have finally kicked into overdrive with Columbus averaging 4.3 goals per game.

This is the third matchup for these two teams. Columbus won the first fight 5-2 at Nationwide, but then Ottawa tied it at home 5-4 back in December.

Columbus Projected Lineup

Artemi Panarin - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Cam Atkinson

Sonny Milano - Nick Foligno - Oliver Bjorkstrand

Boone Jenner - Alexander Wennberg - Thomas Vanek

Matt Calvert - Brandon Dubinsky - Mark Letestu

Zach Werenski - Jack Johnson

Ian Cole - David Savard

Ryan Murray - Markus Nutivaara

Ottawa Projected Lineup

Ryan Dzingel - Matt Duchene - Mike Hoffman

Bobby Ryan - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Alexandre Burrows

Magnus Paajarvi - Zack Smith - Tom Pyatt

Max McCormick - Jim O'Brien - Marian Gaborik

Thomas Chabot - Erik Karlsson

Ben Harpur - Cody Ceci

Mark Borowiecki - Erik Burgdoerfer

Craig Anderson