COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Matt Duchene sparked his new team and Sergei Bobrovsky picked up his second shutout in as many nights as the Columbus Blue Jackets stopped the surging San Jose Sharks.
Duchene tapped in a loose puck early in the second period to get his first goal for the Blue Jackets and added an assist in his second game with the team, and eight other players picked up points in the 4-0 win over the Sharks on Saturday.
Bobrovsky - who has refused to sign a contract extension with Columbus and may be traded before Monday's deadline - had 26 saves in recording a shutout in both ends of a back-to-back for the first time in his career. He was in the net for the Jackets' 3-0 win over Ottawa on Friday, hours after the Senators traded Duchene to Columbus.
''When you play a team sport, there are so many things happening in front of you,'' Bobrovsky said. ''You play against the best players in the world, too, so obviously it's tough to get the shutout. Lots of things have to come together, and it's nice to have it.''
Cam Atkinson had a goal and an assist, and Boone Jenner and Pierre-Luc Dubois also scored for the Blue Jackets, who have won seven of their last 10. They started the day in third place in the Metropolitan Division.
''Yesterday walking in the room before I got traded and looking at the board and seeing all the names, I said `wow, that's a hell of a team,''' Duchene said. ''So hopefully, I can bring another element to that and fit in. So far, so good. Two good ones.''
Martin Jones had 19 saves for the Sharks before being replaced by Aaron Dell halfway through the third period after Columbus scored for the fourth time. Dell had three more stops.
San Jose lost for only the second time in regulation in its last 11 and is in second place behind Calgary in the Pacific Division.
''They were better than us,'' San Jose forward Joe Pavelski said. ''There wasn't much else to it. On our side of the puck, we didn't really put two passes together, we didn't generate much speed.''
A charging Jenner collected a great centering pass from Josh Anderson and finished from the slot to get the Blue Jackets on the board nine minutes into the game.
Duchene tallied 59 seconds into the second period. Late in the second, with San Jose's Micheal Haley in the penalty box for interference, Atkinson poked in a puck that got loose behind Jones, snapping a six-game power-play drought for Columbus.
Skating hard through the left circle, Dubois stayed a step ahead of defender Marc-Edouard Vlasic and the slid the puck between Jones' pads to give Columbus a comfortable lead 6:02 into the third, leading to Jones being replaced in the net.
''We have a few of those games a year,'' Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. ''I don't know why. We didn't execute. They were hungrier, they were more desperate, they deserved to win. We got what we deserved tonight.''
After the game, the Blue Jackets announced the acquisition of Duchene's former Ottawa teammate Ryan Dzingel, who played college hockey for Ohio State. Columbus got Dzingel and a 2019 seventh-round draft pick from the Senators in exchange for forward Anthony Duclair and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 draft picks.
NOTES: San Jose lost on the road for the first time in seven games. ... Columbus D Ryan Murray missed his third game with an upper-body injury. ... Tortorella coached his 300th game for the Blue Jackets. ... Columbus F Alexander Wennberg was a healthy scratch for the second straight game after the acquisition of Duchene. ... Jenner and Anderson have points in three straight games. ... Anderson has 10 points in the last 10 games.
UP NEXT
Sharks: At Detroit on Sunday.
Blue Jackets: Host Pittsburgh on Tuesday night.
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