Jackets In Conference Cellar After 4-3 Loss To Blackhawks
By Steve Sirk

After a winless road trip, the Columbus Blue Jackets arrived home to face that pressure-cooker known as “The Battle For 14th Place.” As has often been the case this year when the Jackets hook up with the rival Chicago Blackhawks, there was much at stake. Namely, the chance to be the NEXT-to-worst team in the NHL’s Western Conference. It’s like Detroit-Colorado, only the exact opposite. Kinda gives you chills, doesn’t it?

Adding texture to the game was the fact that the Blackhawks have already traded away their few recognizable names. Steve Sullivan is now scoring goals for the saber-toothed peckerwoods in Nashville. Alex Zhamnov is plying his trade in Philadelphia, where centermen are dropping like Spinal Tap drummers. So that leaves, what, Bryan Berard? Kyle Calder? Some guy named Matt Ellison? The Blackhawks aren’t exactly the ’27 Yankees of Hockey. (I literally mean the 1927 New York Yankees playing hockey.)

And yet it was the Blackhawks who bested the bigger-name Blue Jackets by a score of 4-3, relegating the Jackets to last place in the Central Division and the Western Conference. It was Columbus’ fifth consecutive loss, and it was not an easy one to take.

“I thought we were the better team tonight,” said Jackets coach Gerard Gallant. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we were the better hockey team tonight. It’s frustrating.”

Things got off to an ominous start for Columbus. From the opening faceoff, the Blackhawks were treating their bench as if it were a Beijing inferno. After some reprimands from the officials, Chicago was finally hit with a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty at 3:18. Six seconds later, they took the lead on a short-handed tally from defenseman Stephane Robidas. The Hawks won the draw and Robidas shot the puck from the blue line, where it deflected off of Todd Marchant’s skate and elevated over a befuddled Marc Denis. The deflection was apparent only on slow-motion replay, meaning the grumbling crowd was not pleased at the apparent softie.

“It hit the inside of Marchant’s skate,” said Gallant. “As bad as it looks, there’s nothing Marc could do.”

At 8:35, the Jackets would equalize, and it was a beauty. Andrew Cassels, in his first game since January, nudged the puck along the left boards to Rick Nash. Nash carried the puck into the offensive zone, faked a shot, and then saucered a pass across the ice to David Vyborny, whose one-timer from 21 feet beat Chicago goalie Craig Anderson low to the glove side.

Thirty seconds later, the Blackhawks again took the ice as if they were the Stanford marching band, earning another two minutes. The Jackets power play, however, continued its horrific slump and squandered the opportunity to take control of the game.

Chicago took the lead at 14:19 of the first on a Tuomo Ruutu goal. The Hawks were beneficiaries of some brutal CBJ lapses. As the puck came across the ice to the right boards in the defensive zone, Manny Malhotra opted to let the puck bounce off the boards and out to him, rather than playing the puck directly. Instead, the puck bounced off the boards and right to the Blackhawks as they skated by. The firing squad commenced, and after Denis made his second save, an unmarked Ruutu swooped in to deposit the rebound.


In the second period, the Jackets took it to the Hawks, but each team netted a goal apiece. Ruutu scored his second of the game at 4:32, roofing a puck that was shot between Jaroslav Spacek’s legs. The Jackets responded at 7:22, when Anders Eriksson scored his 6th goal of the season, on a pass to Nash that was deflected in off of a defenseman’s skate.

At the second period horn, Nash was involved in a scuffle with Jim Vandermeer, stemming from a two-handed slash delivered to Nash’s left wrist. After the game, Nash’s wrist was heavily iced and his status will be determined after x-rays on Thursday. Yet as a result of the incident, Nash was assessed four minutes two Vandermeer’s two.

“The refs missed a two-hander on Nash,” said Gallant. “and that’s fine. But then to give him an extra penalty?”

Nash was as angry as the soft-spoken kid from Brampton could appear to be. “That’s how guys get broken wrists,” he said. “Broken wrists happen when the refs don’t make the calls. No penalty. They hand out memos and talk about the slashing, but then they don’t do anything.”

Nash missed the start of the third period to get his wrist taped, but made an impact shortly after returning to the ice. At 5:09 of the third, the Jackets tied the game and seemed to be getting over the hump. Nash fed Tyler Wright for a wrap-around that beat Anderson five-hole. It was Nash’s third assist on the night, setting a career high. More importantly, the goal snapped the Jackets 0-for-28 skid on the power play.

“It was a big goal,” said Wright. “There was never any doubt in our minds that we were going to win the hockey game. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way.”

Columbus staved off imminent peril by killing off four solid minutes of power play after Eriksson was nabbed for a high-sticking double-minor. Winning pucks and making clears, Vyborny and Wright each did exemplary work on the penalty kill. When Eriksson came out of the penalty box with a little over four minutes to play, the Jackets breathed a sigh of relief. Disaster averted.

Well, for a few seconds, anyway. At 16:10, Kyle Calder beat Denis by tipping a Ruutu shot high into the net. It was the game-winning goal, and it again appeared to be a softie until replay confirmed the change of direction off of Calder’s stick.

“Chicago goes to the net, and good things happen when you go to the net,” said Gallant. “Some of those goals might have looked like bad goals, but they were deflected.”

Denis would have none of it. “Yeah, there were deflections and bad bounces,” he said. “But your job as a goalie is to make sure those bad bounces don’t end up in your net. I’m taking the blame for this one.”

Denis shouldn’t have to shoulder the load. When a team with as much young talent and as many recognizable names as the Blue Jackets find themselves looking up at the anonymous Blackhawks in the standings, there is plenty of blame to go around.