Jackets Odd Men Out In 4-2 Loss To Red Wings
By Steve Sirk

Thursday’s game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings was a stark contrast to the Jackets’ lackluster home efforts against Vancouver and Carolina. For starters, it was watchable. And it was interesting. Dare I say it, it was even exciting. Of course, none of these things translated to victory. The Jackets learned the hard way that giving the potent Motor City Millionaires a succession of odd-man rushes is like spotting Michael Jordan a trampoline in a slam dunk contest. Bad idea. And so it went in a 4-3 loss to the Red Wings before a sellout crowd at Nationwide Arena.

After sleepwalking through two listless displays of nonchalance in the past week, the Jackets came out ready to play. How could they not? As usual, there was a blight of red-clad squid-munchers from the Mitten State fouling up the atmosphere. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher took a break from renting out his jaw as a jalopy-propping cinder block in order to burrow out of the hubcap-littered hills of eastern Pennsylvania in order to take in the game. Red Wings. Steelers. There was truly a disturbance in the force. Had the Jackets come out like zombies in this game, the fans would have pushed for mandatory drug testing for formaldehyde.

The Jackets came out with some jump, and it was newly acquired winger Brian Holzinger who almost put the Jackets on top on his first shift with the club. The Parma, OH native found himself 1-on-1 with Wings goalie Curtis Joseph, but as he attempted to maneuver around Joseph, the puck rolled off the end of his stick and trickled just wide.

“I was a bit excited on my first shift,” said Holzinger. “Ideally, you’d like a chance like that a little later in the game when you’re settled down and in the flow of the game, but you’ve got to take your chances when you can get them. I thought I had him, but it just rolled off my stick at the end.”

Trevor Letowski was suitably settled down at 5:36 when he gave the Jackets a 1-0 lead on a wrap-around. The sequence started with a Scott Lachance slap shot from the right point that Letowski deflected just wide to the right. He circled around the net to retrieve the puck, popping out the left side to jam it into the net.

“Our line had put together some good shifts, and we were rewarded,” said Letowski. “I almost tipped it in the first time on the shot from Lachance, but fortunately I was able to get the rebound and beat him on the other side.”

The Wings tied it at 11:27 of the first, when Jason Williams roofed a backhander off a feed from Brendan Shanahan. After skating around defenseman Anders Eriksson, Williams beat Jackets goaltender Marc Denis high to the stick side.

Not even a minute later, it appeared as though the Wings had taken a 2-1 lead. Nicklas Lidstrom unleashed a slap shot from the blue line. In transit, both Steve Yzerman and Tomas Holmstrom lifted their sticks into the air in an effort to whack at the shot. The puck went in and the goal was immediately waived off, pending a video review. On the replay, it looked as though Yzerman hit it well above crossbar height, although the referees eventually deemed Holmstrom had hit it with a high stick. Either way, no goal.

The second period was largely about Nikolai Zherdev, for better or worse. At the 3:00 mark, Darren McCarty tripped Zherdev and the referee raised his arm. It was a miracle. After flopping on a breakaway against Vancouver on Saturday, Zherdev had gone six solid periods whereby he was fair game to trippers, stick-holders, and hook-men, all of whom operated with blatant abandon, knowing punishment was not forthcoming. The refs had swallowed their whistles. But at long last, the Zherdev penalty drought was over. Perhaps these guys didn’t get the memo.

The penalty occurred in a cluster of Detroit infractions that gave the Jackets 45 seconds of 5-on-3 hockey. Columbus could not capitalize. There were chances to be had-- including Joseph flat-out stealing a goal from Zherdev from point blank range— but the Jackets could not cash in.

The Wings took a 2-1 lead at 7:46 when Williams scored his second on the night. Zherdev coughed up the puck while attempting to gain the opposite blue line, and for the third time on the evening, a Zherdev turnover led to an odd-man rush the other way. The third time was the anti-charm, as former Jacket Ray Whitney nudged the puck forward to Williams, who found himself one-on-one with Denis. Williams again went to the backhand, again shot to the stick side, and again roofed it.

Zherdev made amends late in the second, scoring his 8th goal of the season at 16:49. The skillful Russian faked a shot from the left circle that caused defenseman Jiri Fischer to close his legs together in an effort to prevent the expected shot from going through him. The shot never came. Instead, Zherdev calmly strolled right around the helpless defenseman, and whipped a precision wrist-shot past the glove of Joseph.

Both teams turned up the heat in the third, but in the end, Detroit’s firepower was too much to over come. The pivotal play came with 8:00 to play. The Jackets seemed poised to take the lead. After a mad scramble, NHL goal-scoring leader Rick Nash found the puck on his stick right in front of the Detroit net. Just as Nash was about to send the crowd into a frenzy, Joseph brazenly attempted to poke check the puck away. It was a gamble, but it was all he had.

It worked. And then the Wings were off in the other direction, and it was a 4-on-2. Uh-oh. Lidstrom played a long diagonal outlet to Yzerman, who carried into the offensive zone. He laid the puck off to Lidstrom at the blue line, who played across the zone to Brett Hull at the left face-off circle. Over the past 15 years, the words “Brett Hull”, “left face-off circle” and “one-timer” are often followed by the word “goal.” This was no exception. Hull’s blast beat Denis high to the stick side with 7:55 to play.

“Unfortunately for us, two guys fell behind the net and Nash was knocked off balance,” said Jackets coach Gerard Gallant. “That’s how they got their 4-on-2. They don’t miss many of those, especially with Brett Hull shooting.”

The Wings held on from there. Henrik Zetteberg tacked on an empty-netter with 5 seconds to play to finish the scoring.

“We dominated for parts of the game,” said Manny Malhotra, “but again, it was mental lapses that cost us the goals.”

“All three goals were odd-man rushes,” Denis tersely stated. “That’s the bottom line. The first was a 2-on-1, the second was a bad clear, and the third was a 4-on-2. That’s what it came down to. I’m not saying they had the most scoring chances, but they had the best. You give them that many odd-man rushes and they are going to burn you. That’s what they did.”

Needless to say, after staring down Detroit’s myriad gun barrels, Denis was not in a glass-half-full frame of mind, no matter how close the score.

“Success is defined by results,” he said. “This is getting old. It really is.”