The Columbus Blue Jackets outshot opponents in the last four games but just couldn’t get the puck

COLUMBUS Authentic Aaron Donald Jersey , Ohio (AP) The Columbus Blue Jackets outshot opponents in the last four games but just couldn’t get the puck to bounce their way as the losses piled up.Things finally started going the Blue Jackets’ way again on Saturday night as they beat Metropolitan Division-rival New Jersey 6-1 to snap a season-high five-game losing streak.The onslaught was a relief for Columbus, which badly needed a win after dropping both ends of a home-and-home series this week to Washington and falling farther behind the Capitals in the tightly bunched division. It was the Blue Jackets’ first win in regulation in the last 14 games.”We knew we had it in us,” said forward Pierre-Luc Dubois, who scored the first goal for Columbus . ”Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you aren’t. A game like that helps your confidence.”Keith Kinkaid, playing in place of an injured Cory Schneider, stopped 44 shots for the Devils, who have lost three straight and seven of their last 10.”We started off pretty well, and it just unraveled from there,” Devils defenseman Andy Greene said. ”We have to be a lot stronger mentally. Stuff is going to happen, there are going to mistakes. We have to make sure we fight hard and continue to battle.”Artemi Panarin and Oliver Bjorkstrand each had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 35 shots for Columbus. Josh Anderson, Nick Foligno and Matt Calvert also scored.”We’ve been doing a lot of good things in recent games Aaron Donald Jersey Elite , and to get rewarded a little bit on the offensive side is big,” said Blue Jackets forward Boone Jenner, who had two assists. ”We had a big number of shots again, a lot of breaks for us there.”Dubois scored his 12th goal of the season late in the first period when he skated into the slot and snapped in a perfect feed from Panarin.Columbus scored the next three goals in a space of 3:09 in the second period.”They just kept coming,” Kinkaid said. ”They were relentless in the their battles.”Panarin got his 15th of the season at 11:49 as Cam Atkinson missed with a wraparound try, and Panarin was in the perfect spot to backhand it past Kinkaid.Anderson got his team-leading 17th and made it 3-0 just 80 seconds later on a breakaway, in which Bobrovsky was awarded a secondary assist. Bjorkstrand finished the flurry with a top-shelf tally, his ninth of the season.Foligno, playing in his 400th game with the Blue Jackets, put back a rebound in the third period for his 11th goal, and Matt Calvert made it 6-0 with a rocket from the slot on a power play at 9:45, his seventh of the season.Kyle Palmieri was credited with a goal with 3 1/2 minutes left in the game to spoil Bobrovsky’s shutout bid, although the video replay showed it was tipped in by Jenner as he fell in the crease.”The better team won http://www.losangelesramsteamonline.com/aaron-donald-jersey ,” New Jersey coach John Hynes said. ”The harder team, the more competitive team, the more prepared team won. They deserved it. That’s how you have to play to win this time of year.”NOTES: Columbus scored three goals in a single period for the first time since Dec. 29 and scored six goals in a game for the first time since Dec. 14. … G Schneider missed his seventh straight game due to an injury. Kincaid started his sixth straight in his place. … F Jimmy Hayes and D Mirco Mueller were scratched for New Jersey. … F Lukas Sedlak and D Dean Kukan were scratches for the Blue Jackets.UP NEXTDevils: Hosts Boston on Sunday.Blue Jackets: At the New York Islanders on Tuesday.— John Tavares isn’t the only free agent going back to a familiar place.Several players are returning to their former teams and comfortable situations – from James van Riemsdyk going back to Philadelphia on the second-richest July 1 deal to Matt Cullen taking a significant pay cut to rejoin the Pittsburgh Penguins he helped win the Stanley Cup twice. It’s not quite the tug at the heartstrings that led Tavares to sign a $77 million, seven-year deal with his boyhood Toronto Maple Leafs, but familiarity was part of the bustle on the opening day of NHL free agency .”I have that comfortablity with knowing a lot about the organization having played there in the past and having a lot of familiar faces still on the staff and stuff like that,” van Riemsdyk said after signing a $35 million, five-year deal with the Flyers. ”Even just remembering to my time previously is just how bad obviously they want to win and they’re willing to put the resources into that. That passion and that commitment to that was a big thing for me.”Unsure there’d be room for him after his old team re-signed Riley Sheahan, Cullen signed a $650,000, one-year deal with the Penguins after spending a season back home in Minnesota. Tomas Plekanec was away from Montreal for only a few months, signing a bonus-laden $2.25 million, one-year deal with the Canadiens after they traded him to the rival Maple Leafs at the deadline.Plekanec had planned since the end of the season to go back to Montreal, where his family remained when he went to Toronto. He will be back at the Bell Centre on a contract that can be worth another $1.25 million in incentives. The 35-year-old will get to play his 1 Authentic Todd Gurley Jersey ,000th career regular-season game in his familiar blue, white and red uniform this October.”That was my priority,” Plekanec said. ”I wanted to come back.”While Plekanec obviously felt a strong connection to Montreal after 14 seasons there, David Perron will be playing for the St. Louis Blues for the third time in his NHL career after signing for $16 million over four years. Perron spent his first six seasons with the Blues after they took him in the first round in 2007, returned as a free agent two summers ago, was taken by the Golden Knights in the expansion draft a year ago and is back again after setting career highs with 50 assists and 66 points in Las Vegas.”Obviously (the Golden Knights) made the right decision with the way that David played for them,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. ”He certainly could’ve made more money on the market. He wanted to come back.”Thomas Vanek enjoyed his 48 games with the Detroit Red Wings in 2016-17 so much he wanted to sign with them last July but they didn’t have enough salary-cap space. When the opportunity presented itself this time, the 34-year-old winger zeroed in on a one-year deal and chose Detroit’s $3 million offer over a few other options.”I loved it there,” Vanek said. ”It was a good it. I really liked the whole culture of the organization and the guys were great. We tried to make it work last year. It didn’t work out, so I’m happy it did this year.”No one says hockey players can’t go home, but there has to be mutual interest. It was simple for the Penguins, who lacked something without Cullen in their second-round loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals. Pittsburgh had tried to reacquire the 41-year-old center at the trade deadline.It was a bit more complicated for the Flyers, who traded van Riemsdyk to Toronto in 2012 in a one-for-one deal for bruising defenseman Luke Schenn. That was under a previous regime that believed the 6-foot-3 Todd Gurley Jersey Elite , 217-pound left winger wasn’t tough enough, but GM Ron Hextall sees a player who checks the boxes for a playoff contender with a few holes.”We felt with the fit that we needed some size,” Hextall said. ”We needed goal-scoring. We need a left winger. This one just fit all around for us and I think James felt the same way.”The personality fit was there, too, because Flyers management knew van Riemsdyk, who is 29. Coming through Philadelphia’s system as the second overall pick in 2007 helped with Hextall being willing to make his biggest free agent splash.”We know the person – people inside this organization – (and) obviously that helps,” Hextall said.Van Riemsdyk did his homework by talking with captain Claude Giroux, winger Jakub Voracek and recent Flyers players before choosing to return to his first NHL organization. He also fondly remembered the Flyers’ run to the Cup Final in 2010.”Hopefully again we get a chance to do something like that in the future,” he said.—