Blackhawks Bewilder Jackets, 7-1
By Steve Sirk,  Columbus Wired (2/15/02)

In their brief existence, the Columbus Blue Jackets have acquired a certain knowledge about blowout hockey games. Like all expansion teams, trial and error has taught them the surefire signs of a blowout, be it sluggish legs, a lack of fire, or simply being overmatched from a talent perspective. If any team is well-versed in the ways of the 7-1 hockey game, it is a third year club.

Keeping this in mind, one should consider the following testimony to be darn near infallible, since it is coming from Blue Jackets President/GM/Coach/Computer-help-desk-technician Doug MacLean, who has been through the building process with two different expansion teams.

After the Jackets were vanquished 7-1 by the Blackhawks tonight at Nationwide Arena, MacLean matter-of-factly declared, “It wasn’t a 7-1 game, that’s for sure. “

Sure, the scoreboard read Blackhawks 7, Blue Jackets 1. Technically, the Blackhawks had seven different goalscorers, and Steve Sullivan may have in fact racked up five points on the night. Okay, Marc Denis may have actually been pulled from the game in the second period. But despite all of the evidence to the contrary, it was a tightly-contested, thrill-packed, rock ‘em sock ‘em hockey game that was far more engaging than the score might indicate.

The sellout crowd was pulsating before the first puck was dropped. After all, it had been less than a month since Theoren Fleury, the Blackhawks’ belligerent little lawn gnome, was clobbered by a bouncer at a Columbus strip club at 4:00am, whereupon his battered and inebriated carcass was tossed into a taxi cab that was soon pulled over by the cops. Sports fans relish these sorts of incidents when they happen to players on someone else’s team, and no doubt the city’s hockey fans were counting down the days ‘til Fleury’s return. It didn’t hurt that the Chicago front office accused MacLean of leaking the story by treacherously engaging in some sort of double-secret police blotter espionage, causing a stir that elicited further soundbite salvos from each side. Oh the drama. It’s no wonder that the sellout throng of 18,136 was well-lubricated and lusting for brutality.

The crowd was pleased with the opening of the game. The line of Geoff Sanderson, Espen Knutsen and Grant Marshall started dominating the game from the drop of the puck. Chicago goalie Steve Passmore made two saves on Marshall before the game was even 25 seconds old and Knutsen hit the outside of the net off a nice feed from Marshall a few moments later. And within three minutes, the game had its first skirmish (Lyle Odelein shoving Rick Nash after the whistle) and its first fight (Jamie Allison and Chris Simon hooking up for a lengthy affair, won by Simon.)

The skill guys were doing the skill thing, the tough guys were doing the tough thing, and the crowd was eating it all up because everything was going well for Columbus. And then Mark Bell nudged the puck through three people from a tough angle to make it 1-0 Chicago.

Ah, it’s only a goal. Soon enough, David Ling laid out Andrei Nikolishin with a devastating open ice hit in front of the Blackhawks bench. And then Tyler Wright boomed Alexander Karpovtsev. Things were looking good. And then Nathan Dempsey rifled a 50-foot one-timer past Denis to make it 2-0 Chicago.

Trailing by two goals at the first intermission was a cruel result for Columbus. “I thought our first period was as good as we’ve played,” said MacLean. “It was really solid and we had lots of chances. We could have had a lead.”

Chicago immediately stifled a second period turnaround when Alex Zhamnov shuffle-boarded a slow puck, again from a poor angle, that somehow went through Denis to make it 3-0 Hawks. “I’d really like to take that third one back,” said Denis, who for once didn’t play like some sort of superhuman puck-blocking android.

Despite facing a mystifying 3-0 deficit, the Jackets soldiered on. Searching for the break that would get them back in the game, they found it in their now-potent penalty kill. Ray Whitney snagged the puck and manned a surprising 3-on-2 break. After carrying into the Hawks zone, he dropped the puck to Luke Richardson, whose blast trickled through Passmore. Mike Sillinger swooped in to deposit the rebound for his 150th career goal and the Jackets’ league-leading 11th shorty of the year. Whitney’s assist was his 42nd, tying a personal and club record for assists in season.

The elation was short-lived. On the same power play, the Blackhawks would get the goal back when Eric Daze got a redirect on a Karpovtsev shot from the left point.

At this point, the crowd couldn’t help but assume this wasn’t going to be Columbus’ night. Thank goodness Fleury decided to keep the audience entertained from that point onward. With 8:17 to go in the second, the little fella was dropped to the ice by a Knutsen high stick that went uncalled. As Fleury lay on the ice, the crowd booed lustily. Then the strip club catcalls started. A fan seated below the press box bellowed, “Someone go to the gas station and call him a cab!” (Did I already mention that sports fans eat this sort of stuff up when it happens to players on someone else’s team?)

Thirteen seconds after Fleury picked himself off the ice, John Klemm floated an elusive knuckler from the point into the Columbus net that made it 5-1. Denis was replaced by Jean-Francois Labbe. “The game was 5-1 at the time so it was a chance to give (Denis) a break,” explained MacLean.. “A lot of the goals came off of funny bounces...off skates...through traffic...I thought it was just a good time to give him a bit of a rest.”

The goalie change became an afterthought a minute after it happened because Fleury was at it again. Public Enemy #1 decided to engage the Fan Favorite of Fisticuffs, Jody Shelley. Before Shelley could pulverize the little booger, Odelein stepped in, creating an intriguing mentor vs. pupil matchup between two friends. Shelley won.

“Lyle’s a great man,” said Shelley. “He was the captain here, but when you get on the ice...that little guy Fleury was trying to put on his little show, and Odie decided to step in, which is his job. So he came in and we fought and that’s the way it is. He owes me dinner now.”

At the other end of the ice from the marquee match-up, Sean Pronger and Steve McCarthy were also having a go of it. And David Ling roughed somebody up somewhere along the line. When all was said and done, 56 minutes in penalties were assessed (34 to Chicago and 22 to Columbus) and Pronger and McCarthy were booted from the game. Odelein racked up an instigator, a fight, and a misconduct. As he skated off toward the locker room, the crowd unleashed a furious chorus of boos, as if he was never their captain, and Odie acknowledged them with a wave.

“Columbus has such great fan support,” said Odelein. “When you’re up by four goals, you might as well have some fun with it.”

That was the climax of the evening. Chicago tacked on two more goals for good measure. Fleury continued to be the object of derision. The scoreboard compared him to Yoda in a “Separated at Birth?” feature, and for good measure, the tiny tormenter slashed Rick Nash, causing the stoic 18-year-old to drop his gloves and engage in a little of the rough stuff. From there on out, the game eased toward its conclusion, ending with that deceptive 7-1 score line.

“We knew it was going to be a physical battle and a tough game, and we were fine with that,” said Shelley. “We have a bigger team and a tougher team and a stronger team. We came out and had some great chances, but it’s too bad they got some bounces. I don’t think they overpowered us at all.”

“It’s one of those nights that you want to forget, but we didn’t play bad,” said MacLean. “We get a shorthanded goal to make it 3-1 and then they get a flukey goal from the point. I don’t think we played that bad. We played hard and the shots were 31-31. It’s one of those nights where nothing went right.”

If there is any solace to be taken from such a strange game, it is the fact that the Jackets and Hawks may have officially reached rivalry status. FleuryGate seems to have spawned a whole new level of loathing between the two clubs, on the ice and off. Like their soccer-playing counterparts, the Chicago Fire, the local populace now perceives Theoren Fleury and the Blackhawks to be nothing more than a depraved horde of despicable jackals and thugs, and the Columbus sports landscape is much the better for it.