Columbus Blue Jackets: Gazillion to One
Cannon fire is probably still ringing in the ears of the Blue Jackets faithful. A little more than 19,000 people crammed into Nationwide Arena last night to see something they never had before: a Jackets victory in a playoff series. It took 19 years of broken hearts and missed shots, but in the end the Jackets provided a win as emphatic as it was unlikely when they downed the NHL-leading Tampa Bay Lightning in a four-game sweep, punctuated with a 7-3 shellacking. With the cannon now silent and the smoke finally cleared from the rafters, here’s a closer look at some of the numbers behind the historic victory.
62: The number of games the Lightning won in the regular season, the most by any team since the 1996-97 Detroit Red Wings—30 games were by more than three goals.
2 to 1: The odds that many gambling sites gave the Tampa Bay Lightning of winning the Stanley Cup before the first-round playoff series against the Blue Jackets began
33 to 1: The odds of Columbus winning the cup, according to the BetOnline website
6 to 1: The odds of the Blue Jackets winning the cup now, according to vegasinsider.com
40 to 1: Odds given by the Draft Kings sportsbook of Columbus sweeping Tampa Bay before the series; as reporter Darren Rovell tweeted, not one person took that bet, though many people online pointed out that was likely because the outcome was so improbable that bettors wanted higher odds.
19: Number of goals the Jackets scored against the Lightning, the most in any playoffs in Blue Jackets history after just four games
4.75: Average number of goals the Blue Jackets scored per game, compared to a regular season average of 3.12 and a league playoff average of 2.84
7: Number of points (goals plus assists) tallied by the Jackets’ Matt Duchene in the series, good for fourth in the NHL in the playoffs; Artemi Panarin is ninth with five points.
9: Number of points combined from Zach Werenski and Seth Jones, the only two defensemen on the same team to be in the top 20 in scoring in the playoffs
50 percent: The Blue Jackets’ power play success rate, compared to 15.38 in the regular season and 20.7 across the league in the playoffs
2: Number of times Columbus goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky held the Lightning to less than three goals, which had never happened in the Jackets’ 21 previous playoff games before this season
90,000: The approximate number of homes in Columbus tuned into the final game against the Lightning, according to Fox Sports Ohio—the best TV ratings for a game in team history and 19 percent higher than the previous best
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