Winning Thoughts: Marchenko's hat trick highlights a crucial victory

After CBJ wins, we'll give three takeaways about what stood out or what we'll remember from the Blue Jackets victory.

BLUE JACKETS 8, PREDATORS 4

1. Kirill Marchenko’s third career hat trick highlighted a night in which the Jackets’ top dawgs brought their best.

The saying goes that big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games, and that’s how it went for the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night. With 10 games to go and the Blue Jackets needing to stay close to Montreal for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot, Columbus had four players notch at least three points for just the third time in team history on the way to the eighth eight-goal game in franchise annals.

No one shone brighter than Marchenko, who had the opening goal of the first, second and third periods to notch his third career hat trick, as well as the Blue Jackets’ first one at home this year. It was the third overall this season for Columbus and 53rd in franchise history, and it left Marchenko as just one of four players in team history with at least three hat tricks (Cam Atkinson, 6, Rick Nash, 4, Tyler Wright, 3).

"I say on the bench it feels like a dream every time when you score a hat trick and all the hats are going on the ice,” Marchenko said. “I really enjoy this moment because I score a hat trick at home because on the road, it doesn't feel like that. Here, I just try to enjoy this moment."

Marchenko added an assist for his first career four-point night, while linemate Sean Monahan also had four points with two goals and two assists. Adam Fantilli added a two-goal, three-point night, while Kent Johnson had three helpers to complete the quartet of players with at least three points.

But it was Marchenko’s night, especially as he became the first CBJ player and eighth all-time to reach the 30-goal plateau in a single season.

“I really wanted to score 30,” he said. “It feels great, but (Alex) Ovechkin scored how much? 37 right now (38 after scoring Tuesday night). (I’ll try) to score more. It’s not done.”

2. The Blue Jackets finally got to play with a lead on the way to the win over the Predators.

Saturday at Ottawa, Columbus gave up the first goal of the game to the Senators, and it marked the ninth straight contest in which the Blue Jackets found themselves in a 1-0 hole.

The irony is that the Blue Jackets have been one of the better teams in the NHL this season at scoring first, so the sudden reversal of fortunes was a bit foreign. Columbus has said all the right things – they haven’t been lacking effort at the start of games, and the pressure of having to come back hasn’t weighed on them, players and coaches noted – but the reality is in hockey, you’d rather play from in front than from behind.

Fans might have thought it was an April Fools’ Day prank, then, when they saw the Blue Jackets need just 75 seconds to get on the board against the Preds. Marchenko did the honors, as Zach Werenski pulled the puck out of a scrum and set up the Russian wing in the slot for a quick shot past goalie Juuse Saros.

Columbus never trailed from there – the 58-plus minutes with a lead was a far cry from the 23 total seconds the Blue Jackets led in the previous nine games – and built leads of 3-0, 4-1 and 8-3 before Nashville set the final score.

“I think right from the hop, the boys were ready to play,” Fantilli said. “Marchy scored on his first shift. He didn’t stop from there. Their whole line didn’t stop from there. Our power play was great today, something we’ve been looking for. It was a great all-around win.”

Head coach Dean Evason didn’t quite have the same opinion of the start, though. Even though the Blue Jackets built a three-goal advantage in the opening frame, they gave up too many chances to the Predators for the coach’s liking, but he was happy with the result.

“We scored tonight early, but we didn’t particularly play the right way,” Evason said. “It’s funny how that goes, right? We’ve talked for a bit now, and I scolded you guys for talking about our starts to the players all the time, but we had the results tonight but the start wasn’t good. We were cheating it, we were giving up odd-man rushes. We were very fortunate early to not be behind. It kind of flipped.”

3. The Blue Jackets' power play once again looked powerful.

As the calendar flipped from 2024 to ‘25, Columbus was the home of one of the hottest power plays in the NHL. From Dec. 8 through Jan. 11, the Blue Jackets scored a power-play goal in 13 of 17 games, tallying 16 times overall in 45 chances for a 35.5 percent success rate.

But as the weather got colder, so did the CBJ man advantage. In 27 games over a two-month-plus span, the Blue Jackets notched just three power-play goals while allowing four shorthanded tallies, which is not exactly a recipe for success in the modern NHL.

Things could be turning around, though. Columbus broke a 10-game stretch without a power-play tally Friday, and on Tuesday night, the Blue Jackets went 2-for-5 on the man advantage for its first multigoal game on the PP since Jan. 7.

“We did some different things as far as maybe not being as stagnant as we have,” Evason said. “We’ve talked about getting some movement and we did that, but yeah, to get rewarded (was important). The penalty kill as well. Hopefully that can jump-start us in both the special teams.”

Monahan had both power-play goals – beating goalie Juuse Saros from the wing in the first period and sliding the rebound of a Marchenko shot past Saros in the second – and one could argue his return to the lineup is one of the reasons the unit has started to have more success. Columbus clicked at a rate well above 20 percent before he was injured in early January in Pittsburgh, and the power-play struggles coincided with his time out of the lineup.

"I think the last couple of games, we’ve been moving it around pretty well,” Monahan said. “It’s confidence, guys getting touches and guys reading off each other. We’re doing a better job with that right now.”