What do the Blue Jackets themselves think of the club’s new winning streak?
“We don’t talk about the streak,” says head coach John Tortorella.
Tortorella made his comments Thursday night after the team's 10th straight win came in dominating fashion, during a 4-0 shutout of the Florida Panthers in front of their home fans in Nationwide Arena.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 33 shots for his fifth shutout of the season, Cam Atkinson had a goal and an assist, and Pierre-Luc Dubois had two assists for the Blue Jackets, who improved to 42-28-5 and joined Philadelphia (1984-86) and Pittsburgh (2010-13) as the only NHL franchises to record 10-game win streaks in consecutive seasons.
Tortorella says he’s urged his team to keep the winning streak out of their minds and focus on their next opponents.
“That’s not what this is about. This is about, at the end of the year, trying to get in (the playoffs). And I think that overlays everything. So we’re just trying to take it one day at a time. That’s why I like what our team is doing,” Tortorella said.
The shutout was the 24th of Bobrovsky's career and his seventh straight win. Sonny Milano, Seth Jones and Thomas Vanek - into an empty net - also scored for Columbus, which moved into a second-place tie in the Metropolitan Division with idle Pittsburgh, each with 89 points.
The Blue Jackets nearly made history last season when they won 16 straight games. That was one shy of the NHL record set by Pittsburgh in 1993.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this story
