Unlucky 13: Power Play Futility Costs Jackets In 2-1 Loss to Flames
By Steve Sirk, Columbus Wired

It is said that one should not look a gift horse in the mouth. Never mind the dental exam; the Columbus Blue Jackets sent their gift horse straight to the glue factory. Despite a team record 13 power plays, including over four minutes of 5-on-3 advantage, the Jackets failed to score a power play goal in an appalling 2-1 loss to the resurgent Calgary Flames.

Let’s break down the numbers, shall we?

Power Plays: 13
PP Minutes: 23:44
5-on-3 PPs: 3
5-on-3 PP Minutes: 4:18
PP Goals: 0
Goals Allowed: 1

That’s right, the Jackets played over a period’s worth of hockey with at least a one-man advantage…and were outscored in the process.

“The power play was the game,” said Jackets coach Doug MacLean, the venom oozing as he bit his lip. “I mean, I’ve never seen a power play that looked that bad. We have umpteen opportunities and we’re outshooting them 25-5 at one point and we’re losing the hockey game? I mean, come on. The power play was pathetic. There’s no excuse for it. I can’t understand it. We go into the game 13th in the league on the power play and then have a performance like that from our power play? It’s inexcusable. Pathetic.”

Having said all he had to say, MacLean then briskly departed the interview room in the manner of an angry spouse peeling out of the driveway with theatrical urgency. Had MacLean been wearing tires, he would have squealed. He was PO’ed, dammit.

As well he should have been. The game was gift-wrapped in the opening twenty minutes. The Salvation Army would be hard pressed to match Calgary’s charitable contributions in the first period. The Flames committed seven penalties to give the Jackets five power play chances. To that end, the Jackets out shot Calgary 20-4. (Darryl Sydor out shot Calgary 5-4 all by himself.)

The only problem was that, in all violence to common sense, the Flames had built a 2-0 lead. “Quality, not quantity” seems to be Calgary’s mantra of late. Thursday night in Boston, the Flames had only ten shots through two periods, but led the Bruins 5-0. Two goals on four shots in the opening frame on Friday continued the 50% trend. There have been NBA seasons where Shaq could only dream of shooting free throws as accurately as Calgary has been shooting the puck.

Calgary took a 1-0 lead at 10:55 when Martin Gelinas’ redirection of a Jordan Leopold slap shot squeezed through goalie Marc Denis’ legs and trickled across the goal line.

The Flames doubled their advantage at 16:52, and it was a dagger. Bumbling through another power play, disaster struck for Columbus when defenseman Darryl Sydor pinched in on the left wall, but was beaten to the puck by Jarome Iginla. The Flames’ star was off to the races on a short-handed 2-on-1. With impeccable timing, Iginla saucered a tape-to-tape pass to Matthew Lombardi, who notched his second short-handed goal of the season.

As the horn sounded, the Jackets had taken 83% of the shots, had 83% of the power plays, had won 76% of the faceoffs…and possessed a 0% approval rating. Trailing by two goals, the Jackets were booed off the ice.

The fans didn’t let up in the second period either. When Marc Denis collected a short-handed dump by the Flames, the crowd offered mock applause. Missed passes and forsaken shots were greeted with jeers. It was an ugly scene, and it was made uglier due to the unrelenting nature of Columbus’ power play ineptitude. In a period that saw four more power plays awarded, the Jackets mustered only six shots on goal. (Maybe they were trying the Calgary less-is-more approach and assuming the six shots would equate to three goals.)

Despite it all, the Jackets got back in the game and won back the crowd’s affection when (who else?) Rick Nash scored his league-leading 20th goal of the year just 1:33 into the third. Lasse Pirjeta roared straight up the middle of the ice to gain the zone. He found Nash in the circle to his right, and the youngster deked Flames goalie Mikka Kiprusoff out of his skates before tucking a sprawling backhand inside the left post.

“It was a great pass by Lasse,” said Nash. “I was wide open and took it to the net and had to tap it in.” (For you NFL fans out there, I regret to inform you that the modest, humble, classy Nash did not dial 416 on his cell phone the moment the red light came on.)

With the crowd resuscitated, the Jackets seemed destined to rescue the game from themselves on power play #11, awarded less than two minutes after the goal. Instead, the bumbling power play unit almost served up another shorty. This time Iginla beat a pinching Anders Eriksson to a loose puck. Iginla was off to the races again, fighting off a backcheck from Todd Marchant. Without really shooting, Iginla managed to steer the puck past Denis to make it 3-1. In theory anyway. The problem was that, in an attempt to make the save, Denis’ skate raised the left goalpost all of 1/8 of an inch into the air. The goal did not move. The left post was lifted, in place, for a split second, but it was precisely the split second in which the puck crossed the line. The letter of the law once again soundly defeated common sense. The goal was waved off.

“I was driving wide and saw it was in,” said Iginla. “It wasn't a kick. They said the net just moved a millimeter; popped up or something. It was pretty close. They obviously took a long time to call it.”

“It was a mystery call from up top,” said Flames coach Darryl Sutter. “I watched it and the net's got to literally move. Did it move?” (The correct answer is, “No, it did not literally move. Nor did it laterally move, which is probably more important.”)

The Jackets got off on a technicality, but the damage was done. A generous 1:44 of uninterrupted 5-on-3 midway through the period was as fruitless as an Antarctic orange grove. (Or whatever.) There was little excitement the rest of the way.

Understandably, the Columbus locker room was filled with long faces, somber eyes, and soft voices.

“That many opportunities, you have to have at least one goal,” said Sydor. “The bottom line is that the power play didn’t come through. It’s a privilege to be on the power play, and right now we’re not getting it done.”

“It’s tough (to lose) when you have that many power plays,” said Nash. “We worked on it all week at practice. Then to come out and give it that kind of performance is really frustrating. We have a good system that’s obviously been working before. It’s not Xs and Os. It’s effort. We’re not working hard enough to retrieve the puck. That’s the main problem. We had the extra man and we must have given up for or five odd man rushes. We need to pay the price to retrieve the puck.”

Conversely, the Calgary locker room was filled with joyous relief.

“It was a really big win for us,” said Iginla. “Columbus plays well at home and they've got a great power play. We didn't want to give them that many chances and it was an ugly game on our part. 13 kills might be the most I’ve seen. In fairness, we did deserve a lot of them. But Kiprusoff played great, we had a great penalty kill, and it was a huge win.”

Flames center Stephan Yelle summarized the game in one simple understatement: “Tonight, we took too many penalties.”

Who says cheaters never prosper?


Three Stars

1st Star: Mikko Kiprusoff (CGY)- Came up with those 20 saves in the first period to keep the Flames alive. Although he did a poor job controlling his rebounds, he kept the scoreboard clean until the power play gorilla got large enough to do its own damage. “Our goalie won us the hockey game,” said Sutter. “The best penalty killer is the goaltender and he got us a lot of big saves.”

2nd Star: Jarome Iginla (CGY)- Although he did not score a goal, Iginla was very instrumental in the Flames victory. A recent scoring champ, Iginla made his mark on the game as a penalty killer. His steal and pass set up the back-breaking shorty late in the first. He was robbed by the rulebook on a shorty of his own in the third. All in all, Iginla spent 5:17 on the kill, second-most among Calgary forwards.

3rd Star: Rick Nash (CBJ)- Another huge goal, which got the fans back on the home team’s side, if only briefly. Add in a few booming checks and several dazzling passes, and it’s a typical star-worthy game from #61.