Thrashers Again Torment Jackets, 3-2
By Steve Sirk,  Columbus Wired (3/22/03)

If someone were to put me on the spot and ask me to describe tonight’s Blue Jackets – Thrashers game in one double-hyphenated word, I’d choose “Aye-yie-yie.” I don’t know that someone would ask such a silly question, but suffice it to say that there was a lot of aye-yie-yie’in to be done at Nationwide Arena this evening, as the Jackets inexplicably lost to the heavy-legged Thrashers by a 3-2 score. It was a maddening game from the Sisyphean start to the bad-bounce finish. Blecch.

The Jackets could not have scripted a better start to the game. Atlanta was coming off a 5-1 drubbing Friday in Ottawa, and it showed. Columbus was all over the Thrashers from the get-go, eventually amassing a 12-0 advantage in shots on goal. But the goals weren’t coming. David Vyborny redirected a Ray Whitney feed from in close, but Jan Hnilicka smothered it. Rick Nash slalomed through literally the entire defense, but Hnilicka was there to snuff out Nash’s final push toward goal. The Ling-Pronger-Shelley line rattled off three good scoring chances in succession, but Hnilicka was there each time. Hnilicka wasn’t spectacular, nor was he forced to be, but he sure got in the way an awful lot.

There were less than seven minutes to play in the period, the shots were 14-1 Columbus, and yet the game was scoreless. As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of sporting events knows, this was clearly a recipe for disaster.

Inside of two minutes to play, disaster would finally strike when Dany Heatley blistered a one-timer from the slot for his 34th goal of the year, tying co-phenom Ilya Kovalchuk for the team lead. The power play goal gave the Thrashers an improbable 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission, despite being out shot 16-5.

“We dominated them in the first period with 16 shots,” grumbled Jackets President/GM/Coach/Stinger Doug MacLean.

The Thrashers found their legs a bit in the second period, but again it was the Jackets that were threatening the goal again and again. David Ling turned the corner on Jeff Cowan, blowing right past him on his way to the net, but Hnilicka made the save. Lasse Pirjeta crossed the blue line at full speed, cut toward the middle, and ripped a low shot to the near post, but Hnilicka got a pad in the way. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the only way the Jackets were going to score is if someone carried them on his back and showed them where the puck was supposed to go.

He may be only 18, but Rick Nash has big shoulders. Becoming increasingly more physical as he grows into his big frame, Nash was simply a bulldozer on a goal scoring sequence late in the second. At the left post, Nash held off two Thrashers while trying to jam a puck home. When the puck was deflected behind the net, Nash chased it down, muscled off a defender and played the puck to Matt Davidson. Davidson played out front on the right to Pirjeta, who smacked a shot into the crease. And there was Nash (surprise!), waiting to power his way to a goal. In the middle of hurricane evacuation type traffic, the immovable rookie kicked the rebound to his stick blade and jammed it inside the left post to tie the score at 1-1. For his efforts, he was rewarded with a cross-check into the crossbar by Thrashers defenseman Garnet Exelby. If you can’t move him before he scores, might as well try afterward.

The Jackets weren’t discouraged by the 1-1 score line at the second intermission, although the score was hardly desirable given the nature of the game. “We weren’t concerned after the first or second period,” said left-winger Geoff Sanderson. “We believed in ourselves throughout.”

That belief would be tested at the 5:05 mark, when Atlanta center Mark Hartigan was left wide open between the circles. Kovalchuk picked out Hartigan from behind the net, and the one-timer beat Jackets goalie Marc Denis low to the glove side to make it 2-1 Thrashers.

The Jackets’ response was almost immediate, and again Nash would not be denied. This time the #1 pick made a strong loop from circle to circle, fending off Thrashers with one arm while pushing the puck with one hand on his stick. At the end of his clockwise arc, Nash shoved the puck to defenseman Luke Richardson, who had pinched in from the left point. Richardson let loose with a low-angle shot that was tipped by Davidson and trickled through the crease to Pirjeta, who stopped the puck before flicking it into the empty net.

It took 47 seconds to tie the game, but still momentum wouldn’t totally swing Columbus’ way. The longer the game went without the Jackets finally seizing the lead, the more a sense of foreboding gripped the arena.

The doom was almost palpable by the time the Thrashers got their lucky break. With just over seven minutes to go, the Thrashers had a 2-on-2 situation as they entered the Columbus zone. Tony Hrkac carried the puck up the left wing, then attempted to do a cross-corner dump. Jackets defenseman Rostislav Klesla broke the play up by deflecting the puck down out of the air. Unfortunately, the deflection fell directly into the path of right wing Lubos Bartecko, who suddenly found himself one-on-one with Denis. After a sloppy touch, Bartecko beat Denis stick side for the game-winner.

“It was a bad bounce, which makes for a tough loss,” said Nash.

“It’s disappointing because it’s a game we should win,” said MacLean. “We outplayed them, but we didn’t get it done. It’s frustrating.”

Aye-yie-yie.