Lightning Strikes In Third; Jackets Lose 1-0
By Steve Sirk, Columbus Wired

Entering tonight, the Blue Jackets had been perfect at home. The undefeated Tampa Bay Lightning had been perfect, well, everywhere. So one has to wonder how perfection and perfection begat something as imperfect as Tampa Bay’s 1-0 victory at Nationwide Arena. It was if Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had a baby that grew up to look like that chubby, red-haired, freckled kid that was in terrible movies such as “Son-In-Law” and “Ladybugs.”

A workmanlike performance from the Blue Jackets enabled them to hang tough with the NHL’s hottest team, but a crucial defensive gaffe inside of four minutes to play allowed Vincent Lecavalier to earn the Lightning the first road win at Nationwide this season.

The first two periods didn’t exactly send the mercury racing up the thrillometer. The Jackets played solid defense and kept the potent Lightning lineup from threatening much in the way of lamp lighting. Oddly enough, Tampa’s two best scoring chances through forty minutes came while shorthanded. At 14:24 of the first, munchkin Martin St. Louis rang the post on a feed from Fredrik Modin, and at 14:31 of the second, Dave Andreychuk thwacked Denis in the facemask off a faceoff win. But aside from that, the Jackets effectively bottled up the Lightning.

“There was no panic in our play,” said captain Luke Richardson. “Even when they got cycling on us, we did a great job in our own zone to scramble down. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much offense into our game until the third period.”

That’s an understatement. The Jackets forced all of eight saves out of backup goalie John Grahame in the opening twenty minutes, and then followed it up with a three-shot “onslaught” in the second.

Never mind the lack of shots, the second period in general was a tedious experience, with play stopping seemingly every shift. There were 29 faceoffs in the second period alone, which is telling since there were no goals and only five penalties. And this followed 23 faceoffs in the first period. Ye Gods! Here is an actual unedited line from my notebook: “NO FLOW!!! Icing icing icing icing icing icing.” (I then ran out of room at the edge of the page.)

“As a player, you like to play twenty minutes straight with no whistles,” said Jackets center Todd Marchant. “There were a lot of stoppages and whistles. There were a lot of pucks shot out of the rink and a lot of icing calls and stuff like that. But the guys stayed with it.”

Although not by design, Richardson felt that the stop-and-go pace helped the Jackets. “They’re a quick skating team,” he explained. “For us, having to fly back home after playing last night, it probably helped to get our legs back under us. It allowed us to dictate the tone of the game. I think we did a pretty good job of getting the flow the way we wanted. We really addressed it after the second period and then came out and played a strong third period.”

The Blue Jackets came out buzzing in the third, finally giving the crowd something to get excited about. (Hardly any whistles either…only 11 faceoffs!) At 4:11, Marchant inside-outed a pair of Lightning defenders en route to goal, but was snuffed out by Grahame. At 6:17, Rostislav Klesla was upended on his way to the net, forcing Grahame to hurdle Klesla as he helicoptered out of control into the Tampa goal. At 9:47, Andrej Nedorost went blue line to blue line, before blasting a shot wide. At 10:45, Jaroslav Spacek zipped a laserbeam of a power play slapshot off the crossbar. At 14:42, Geoff Sanderson and David Vyborny just missed connections on a give-and-go right up the gut. (Grahame still had to nudge the puck wide with his toe.) At 15:46, Rick Nash whipped a wrist-shot just wide.

With the offense awakened, it seemed as though the good guys were destined to pull of yet another home victory. Then…uhhh…whoops. A puck caromed off of a referee’s skate and was collected by Derrick Walser on the right side of the Jackets zone. He dropped the puck to Denis. Rather than covering up, Denis pushed the puck back around his net for Jaroslav Spacek. Unfortunately, Tampa scoring ace Lecavalier laid in wait. Pouncing on his unsuspecting prey like one of those sneaky sand-dwelling spiders, Lecavalier snagged the puck and quickly reached around to jam it in the far post with just 3:48 to play. The Jackets were never able to recover.

“Near the end of the game, it really takes a lot of life out of you,” said Richardson. “I thought Marc played such a great game too to keep us in the game. Just that one miscue in the third. Lecavalier is a great player and he made a great play to cut it off. It took a little bit of life out of us.”

In addition to the miscommunication between Denis and Spacek, coach Doug MacLean was unhappy that the puck was played back to Denis in the first place. “In those situations, you go forward with the puck,” he said. “Then there was some miscommunication at the end. You learn from it.”

Denis was visibly angry with himself while tersely responding to questions about the goal. “It was a tight game and we need to win those games,” he said. “It’s a very sour taste right now, to just give it away like that. I gave it away. Didn’t see him. We played a very solid game and have nothing to show for it. Very frustrating.”

“Having it end on a flukey goal like that is really disappointing after battling so hard,” agreed MacLean. “I thought we dominated the third period. We clanged one of the post. We played really hard, but it was a flukey play at the end.”


Sirk’s Three Stars

1. John Grahame (TB)- A backup goalie in his first action of the year getting a shutout on the road against a good home team. Even if he wasn’t forced to be spectacular, it’s still an accomplishment worthy of the number one star.

2. Vincent Lecavalier (TB)- Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. Steals Denis’ #2 star just like he stole the game after intercepting Denis’ pass.

3. Todd Marchant (CBJ)- Seriously, is this guy the greatest signing ever, or what? Once again led the team in ice time, played outstanding defense, banged some bodies, and was a contributor in the offensive zone, including that dazzling open ice move that beat two defenders.