It was one of those gut feelings John Tortorella gets on the Blue Jackets’ bench.

His forwards weren’t generating enough against the Vancouver Canucks on March 1 at Nationwide Arena and he didn’t like the configuration of his lines, so the Blue Jackets coach made a switch.

That part wasn’t unusual.

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In fact, Tortorella does that quite a bit, to the point where fans will post about the "Tortorella Line Blender" online and include a GIF of an actual blender doing its thing.

What made that particular whir of Tortorella’s blender so interesting, however, is that he went with "puree" over "blend."

Strapped by injuries to a number of top-six forwards, he put center Alexander Wennberg at left wing on center Pierre-Luc Dubois’ line and grouped them with rookie Emil Bemstrom’s high-caliber shot.

"I had it all spread out and I knew after two rounds of going through (shifts)," said Tortorella, who sent those three onto the ice for the first time at 8:57 of the first period. "I said, ‘This is ugly, this isn’t gonna work.’ I needed to condense it … getting my two best offensive players within two lines instead of spreading it out between three and four. And that’s where that came from."

Well, it worked.

The Blue Jackets pulled off a stunning comeback with four goals in the final 7:21 of the third period to win 5-3, and his reconfigured lines played a big role. Bemstrom drew a tripping penalty on Vancouver’s Antoine Roussel with 3:33 left and scored the winner on the ensuing power play.

Wennberg, Dubois and Bemstrom have stayed together since and have shown a growing chemistry. According to naturalstattrick.com, the Jackets have gotten more total shots (31-28), shot attempts (52-39), scoring chances (22-16) and high-danger scoring chances (13-7) at even-strength with them together the past four games, with the lone downside total goals (1-3).

"It’s been going good," said Wennberg, who still utilizes his passing prowess from the wing. "I really like to play with (Dubois), because it feels like you can read off of him. Maybe defensively we’ve been getting scored on a little bit, but in general, I looked at the (Edmonton) game and we created some grade A chances and we had some opportunities."

Bemstrom sent the puck off the crossbar on one of them, which would have tied it 1-1 in the third, but he didn’t miss Sunday in Vancouver. After drifting to the low slot, Bemstrom put the Jackets up 1-0 at 7:18 of the second period by snapping a shot into the net off a pass from Dubois.

It was the Jackets’ first goal in a 2-1 victory to conclude a three-game trip to western Canada, and it offered proof of what Dubois has told the talented rookie.

"He’s one of those guys who has a shot that not more than one or two guys per team have," Dubois said. "I think he can be one of those players that, you know, every team looks at us and says, ‘OK, we’ve got to make sure this guy doesn’t shoot too many pucks tonight, because it could be a long night for us.’ "

Dubois isn’t Bemstrom’s only source for setups now, either. Wennberg is out there, too.

"I told Torts at the start of the year, like, ‘I don’t know if Wenny will ever play on the wing or I’ll be on the wing, but I think he’s a really good player and could be a really fun player to play with,’ " Dubois said. "He plays a game that matches well with mine, where we want to play with the puck. We still have a lot we can learn from each other, but I think we’re playing well together."

bhedger@dispatch.com

@BrianHedger