Blackhawks Downed 2-1 In Jackets Home Opener

By Steve Sirk,  Columbus Wired (10/10/02)

A comeback from an early deficit. Crucial plays made down the stretch with the game on the line. The young phenom heeding his calling and picking up first star honors. Yup, the Blue Jackets 2002-03 home opener had it all…backwards. See, it was the team with the silly bug on their shoulders that came back, held on, and got a top-notch performance from a superstar in the making.

What a difference a year makes.

The Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 tonight at Nationwide Arena on the strength of Marc Denis’ goaltending, the two-way play of Mike Sillinger, and special teams that were indeed special when they needed to be. Oh, and the Nash kid gave the sellout crowd of 18,136 a thing or two to cheer about along the way.

It took Nash all of two-and-a-half minutes to bring the crowd to its feet. Taking the puck on the right side of the offensive zone, he stickhandled right around a bewildered Igor Korolev and raced behind the Blackhawks goal, only to have his wrap-around attempt stuffed by Blackhawks goalie Jocelyn Thibault. Throughout the rest of the period, Nash set up Sillinger for three terrific scoring opportunities, and also forced a hooking penalty when he slalomed through the majority of Chicago’s penalty killers.

The Jackets owned the opening period, and the early parts of the second, building a 20-6 shot advantage along the way. The CBJs looked to have squandered their good play when Chicago managed to take the lead on a power play goal following a trip by Ray Whitney. Alexei Zhamnov played a diagonal puck from left to right to Kyle Calder, who ripped a shot at Denis. The rebound fell in front, where Sergei Berezin poked it home.

The crowd deflated. They needed a pick-me-up. Off the ensuing faceoff, Jody Shelley attempted to restore the throng’s adrenaline with a game of five-knuckle stud. One can argue that although neither fighter went down, Chicago’s Louie Debrusk won the decision. Bummer.

Clearly the crowd needed something more…something special…to happen. And as if on cue, Nash came through and leveled the score before the Chicago lead was even a minute old. Some confusion in the Chicago end allowed Sillinger to sneak in and snatch the puck. He zipped a shot toward Thibault, whose rebound found the stick of Nash. Time to flip the switch on the little red light.

“It was an amazing feeling,” said Nash. “It was a nice shot by Sillinger. I was lucky enough that the puck bounced right on my stick. I just tapped it in.”

With building again buzzing, Grant Marshall tried to amp the crowd further by tossing the gloves with The Blue Jackets First Captain Ever™. The only problem was that Lyle Odelein suddenly turned into Ghandi in a red sweater. Odie’s gloves stayed on and Marshall sat alone. The Jackets penalty-kill rebounded to snuff out the disadvantage.

Not to be outdone, it was the Jackets power play that rose to the occasion late in the period. After several semi-sloppy attempts at playing with an extra man, Columbus’ fifth power play was absolute perfection. For an entire minute of uninterrupted play, the puck never once left the Chicago zone.

“A lot of credit goes to the point players, Whitney and Spacek,” said coach Dave King. “When you move the puck as quickly as we did, the defense can’t react. Something is going to open up.”

Open sesame. The pressure paid off when Whitney’s shot from the right rebounded to an unmarked Sillinger, who angled in a shot from the left side to give the Jackets the lead.

“That’s what we’ve been working on all preseason- getting the puck to the net,” said Sillinger. “Now that they’re cracking down on stick holding, it’s just a matter of fighting for position and fighting for those loose pucks. We did that tonight. That’s how we scored our two goals.”

Turns out fighting for position and fighting for loose pucks are also the reasons those two goals held up in the end. In the third period, the Jackets scrapped their way to victory despite being outshot 14-3 in the final twenty minutes. “Chicago is a team that forces you to get your nose dirty,” said King. “You’ve got to go into the corners and take a hit to make a play because the Hawks play that style. They’re in your face all the time.”

They spent plenty of time in the face of goalie Marc Denis, who was particularly outstanding. His evening was defined by a series of saves on Tyler Arnason with 15 minutes remaining. From point blank range, the young center ripped a shot. Save Denis. Given a rebound, Arnason let another one go. Save Denis. Given another rebound, he fired for a third time in succession. Save Denis. This time the Columbus goalie kept the puck in his glove, which he held high in triumph to the delight of the crowd.

“Marc was really great,” said King. “His rebound control was excellent. Goalies often make the first save, but it’s those second and third saves that are very difficult. His coverage on loose pucks was really good.”

Denis was on. So far, so good. But as if the crowd wasn’t nervous enough (given the Jackets history of blowing leads), things got downright panicky when Nash hobbled straight to the dressing room after tangling with Phil Housley. Turns out it was just a quad cramp, but Shelley hopped on the ice to chase Housley back to the bench anyway.

Nash may have been gone, but the clock kept counting down toward victory. (If they didn’t blow it.) And then, straight out of the worst case scenario handbook, Grant Marshall was called for holding with exactly two minutes remaining. “It was a tough call,” said Sillinger. “The referees don’t care anymore who’s up or who’s down, they’re going to blow the whistle.”

Trailing by a goal, Chicago would have a man advantage for the rest of regulation. Denis was crapping his oversized goalie pants, right? Wrong.

“To be honest,” he said, “I thought ‘Maybe a little 5-on-4 is what we need to get us going.’”

They say goalies are a little bit crazy, and this quote would seem to confirm the theory. But it turns out Denis’ faith in his penalty killers was wholly justified. Throughout the game, Tyler Wright did some great skating and launched some crucial ices. The defensemen cleaned up the slop. Kevin Dineen forechecked with a belly full of jumping beans.

The heroes of the final penalty kill would be many. With 1:49 to go, Sean Pronger forced a face-off when he denied Thibault the chance to drop the puck to a teammate after gloving it. Pronger defended Thibault as if he were inbounding a basketball. With 1:30 to go, Tyler Wright iced the puck. With 51 ticks left, Denis made a save on Michael Nylander.

And then it was Sillinger’s turn to shine. “I take a lot of pride being on the ice at the end of the game and getting the job done,” he said. “It’s all about paying the price, and there are 22 other guys in this room who paid the price tonight.”

After a Chicago hand pass brought the face off down to the Hawks’ zone with :23 left, Sillinger won the face off, allowing the Jackets to bleed precious seconds off the clock. And then with two seconds left, Sillinger hurled his body toward the blue line, smothering Chicago’s last gasp attempt at tying the score.

The crowd roared. Or exhaled in a roaring fashion at any rate. Blue Jackets 2, Blackhawks 1.

“We’ve never won a home opener,” said King, “but tonight we did. And last year we had chances to win games and didn’t get it done, but tonight we did. There was a note of optimism after a good preseason and I think we’ve generated some momentum.”

Their momentum will carry the Jackets into New Jersey on Saturday, where, for the first time ever, they will take the ice with a record of 1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 (or however many zeroes are in the standings nowadays.)