Rough Way To Lose: Jackets Drop Gloves, Game To Predators
By Steve Sirk

In four years, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Nashville Predators have conspired to produce bland, yet spirited hockey whenever they have shared the ice. Lots of 2-1 games with plenty of edge, but little action. Contact chess. But before a crowd of 16, 335 at Nationwide Arena, the two teams tripled the action and the animus in game that taxed the both the scoreboard and penalty box doors. Nashville edged Columbus, 6-4, continuing their recent domination in the series, but the fans certainly got their money’s worth.

Among the highlights:

--Rick Nash did not score, but even rarer still, the league’s leading scorer dropped the gloves.

--In addition to the ten goals, two Columbus goals were disallowed by quick whistles from the referees.

--Each team had a player with an “assist hat-trick.” Marek Zdlicky for Nashville and Manny Malhotra for Columbus.

--Nashville’s Jamie Allison had a tussle with a fan.

--Nashville’s Jordin Tootoo tried to eat Tyler Wright’s finger.

As you can see, there is much to discuss.

The evening started out normally enough. For example, the national anthem went off without the singer being arrested for bank robbery. Even when the game first started, the three whistles within 26 seconds pointed to a typical Columbus-Nashville game. But somewhere along the line, things got screwy.

Columbus took a 1-0 lead at 6:39 when Geoff Sanderson scored on a 5-on-3 power play. Sanderson collected a Nash redirection and roofed it from a poor angle. Nashville quickly equalized at 8:09 when Wyatt Smith deposited the rebound after a flurry of saves by Jackets goalie Marc Denis.

When Kimmo Timonen put the Preds up 2-1 at 18:11 with a well-placed blast from the point on the power play, the game’s goal quota had already been met. It was much too early for three goals. Suspicions were aroused.

Geoff Sanderson scored what appeared to be his second goal of the game at 19:17, which would have been a huge momentum boost heading into the locker room. David Vyborny ripped a shotthat was saved by Vokoun. The puck hit Vokoun in his side and rebounded right to Sanderson who knocked it home. However, in the split second between Vokoun’s save and Sanderson’s goal, referee Chris Rooney blew his whistle, thinking Vokoun had caught the puck.

The boos cascaded from the upper reaches of the arena.

Compounding the frustration was a hooking call on Sanderson just 14 seconds later, giving the Preds a carry-over power play. Nashville would capitalize just 39 seconds into the second period on a sweet turnaround redirection by Scott Hartnell. 3-1 Preds.

“That was a huge momentum shift, obviously,” said Wright. “(The disallowed goal) makes it 2-2 with a faceoff at center ice instead of running around trying to kill a penalty and going down 3-1.”

Nashville immediately swelled the lead to 4-1 when Vladimir Orszagh beat Denis on a soft, unobstructed, 24-foot wrister. Denis was pulled in favor of Freddy Brathwaite.

At 2:35, just 25 seconds after Orszagh’s goal, Trevor Letowski lit the lamp for Columbus, sweeping in a Tyler Wright rebound. The feat was all the more impressive considering Marek Zidlicky was pulling Letowski’s skates out from under him in the process.

As if the massive goal output weren’t odd enough, things got very strange indeed during the final eight minutes of the second period.

First came Luke Richardon’s fight with Adam Hall. Richardson is a fine captian, but he’s not known to drop the gloves that often. After what seemed like an eternity of dancing and sizing up, Richardson delivered a massive blow to Hall’s head, but Hall landed several punches as he dragged Richardson down.

“I was passing the puck in the zone,” Richardson explained. “He was finishing his check, and I got my stick up a bit to ride him off, but I didn’t get my stick up all the way and I kinda speared him. He took exception to that, and that’s fine. I told him from the penalty box that that wasn’t what I meant to do and told him ‘good fight.’ That’s the spirit of the game. You just move on. Most guys in the league are pretty good guys. You play hard and sometimes things happen in the heat of the moment, but then it’s over.”

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?

Then the Jackets had another goal called back. There was a flurry in front of the Nashville net, the ref lost sight of the puck and blew the whistle. Jackets defenseman Rostislav Klesla had the loose puck and shot it into the net. A skirmish ensued.

Shortly thereafter, the league’s leading goalscorer, Rick Nash, engaged in a lengthy bout with Nashville’s young, skilled defenseman Zdlicky. After a lengthy battle for position in the right faceoff circle, and after Nash delivered a perfectly–timed face wash, the fight was on, and it was a sight to behold. Zdlicky did a good job of hunching down and tying up Nash’s jersey, leaving Nash with little option but to deliver chopping blows to the back of Zdlicky’s head. It looked like Nash was playing Hungry Hungry Hippos or something. Anyway, once Nash got his arm free, he delivered a few proper punches, earning a raucous ovation from the crowd.

“He plays inspired,” said Richardson, of Nash. “It gave crowd a lot of electricity. He takes a lot of punishment in front of the net every day. I’m sure he feels like doing it every night, but he stays composed. He also doesn’t back down. They gave it to him tonight, so he went after them, which was good to see. It was a fair trade-off (fighting Zidlicky). It wasn’t like some knucklehead was taking Nasher off the ice.”

Nash shrugged off his Jody Shelley impersonation. “It’s part of the game,” he said. “I had to drop them in juniors a few times. You can’t let people take advantage of you out there. Obviously it’s not going to happen every night, but if the team needs a boost or if someone’s taking advantage of you, you need to stick up for yourself and for your team.”

As Nash headed to the box, Shelley took the ice and the crowd was quivering with anticipation. Shelley is the reason more people don’t drop the gloves with Rick Nash. If you engage the 30-goal guy, be prepared for the reinforcements.

Shelley bumped, whacked, and jawed with anyone he could find, but he had no takers. During one post-whistle jaw-fest, another fight randomly broke out. Jordin Tootoo quickly dispatched of Jeremy Reich, much to the crowd’s dismay.

Shelley finally got some action inside of a minute to play. On his way to the Columbus bench, Shelley and former Blue Jacket Jamie Allison “bumped into each other.” Another skirmish ensued, with both players receiving 10-minute misconduct penalties. (No fighting though.) As Allison left for the locker room, a fan ended up with one of his gloves, creating the spectacle of a fuming player trying to retrieve his glove from a fan. Words were exchanged. Allison chucked his stick down the hallway.

“I don't really want to get into it,” said Allison. “It was the wrong thing to do. It was the heat of the moment. I was frustrated about what happened on the ice. I apologized to him. The fans were excited and I was excited. No big deal. It was a mistake."

You’d think everything would have been brought under control in the second intermission, but the strangest event of the night occurred early in the third. After a run-in with Tootoo, an injured and hunched-over Letowski headed for the Jackets’ bench. Along the way, he encountered Tootoo again. The two collided and Tootoo went flying. Letowski earned the penalty.

“I was coming down the wall and he stuck me right in the chest,” said Letowski. “The ref didn’t see it and it knocked the wind out of me. I was frustrated and skating off when he came at me again. I knew he was looking to give me a shot so I just kinda braced myself and I don’t think he was ready for that. So they called me there.”

Thejackets players took umbrage to the perception that Tootoo was running an injured player, leading to yet another pack of angered humanity. Somewhere amidst the shoving, the swearing, and the face-washing, Tootoo bit Tyler Wright’s pinkie.

“Tootoo,” said and angry Wright. “He bit me. I’ve never been associated with a such a…I dunno. I was rattled. I was floored. I didn’t know what to do. The kid’s going to get it though. You can’t bite someone. The cameraman says he has a shot if it. That’s ridiculous. I play hard. I throw some cheap shots maybe every now and then, but that’s crossing the line. What comes around goes around. You make a mental note of it. Someday, sometime.”

Tootoo is the first Inuit to ever play in the NHL. His hometown is Rankin Inlet, Nanuvet, which is located 1100 miles north of Winnipeg and a mere 200 miles from the arctic circle.

“He’s from way up north,” said Wright, of his finger-munching assailant. “Maybe he likes raw food.”

Inuit smack. Classic. Simply classic.

When told of the incident, Richardson could only smirk and shake his head. “When you put Tyler Wright and Jordin Tootoo together, you’re going to get some fireworks.”

Anyway, the teams traded goals in the third, with Walker and Erat scoring for Nashville; Letowski and Wright scoring for Columbus.

And so it was. The Jackets lost by two goals, which not-so-coincidentally is the number of goals they had waived off. Gallant doesn’t buy into that excuse though.

“The first one was a downer, no doubt, when we tied it up,” said Gallant, who accepted the call for what it was- a mistake. “The referee missed the call. That’s all. He apologized. That’s that. There’s nothing he can do. He thought the puck was frozen, and to be honest, I thought the puck was frozen too. The refs don’t cheer for Nashville and they don’t cheer for Columbus. He thought the puck was in the glove and he was on the far side and didn’t have a clear angle of it. It was still 2-1. We have to play better after that.”