Jackets Post First Shutout of Year

By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

In the new NHL a night a one-goal game is as rare as no-hitter in baseball. On Wednesday, Nationwide Arena witnessed the rarity as the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim 1-0 in front of 17,387.

Marc Denis stopped all 40 shots he faced and Jason Chimera’s second effort was enough to give Columbus its second straight win.

“Both goaltenders played outstanding,” Chimera said. “Marc Denis was standing on his head all game long. It seemed like one of those games where you are going to see a greasy goal go in and one in fact did.”

Chimera skated from the right faceoff circle and put a wrap-a-round on Ducks’ goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who stopped the puck with his leg pad. When the referee didn’t blow the puck frozen, Chimera kept poking at it and slipped under Giguere’s pad with 3:07 remaining in the game.

“It’s frustrating,” Giguere, who had 42 saves, said. “When he wrapped around, I covered the bottom. I thought the puck stayed there as he kept banging on my pad and the puck ended up in the net somehow.”

Mike Rupp was also standing at the crease as the play developed and also banged on Giguere, but the goal was credited to Chimera. Replays showed that Anaheim’s Teemu Selanne actually knocked the puck in the net.

“I saw the puck was loose so in that situation you just start digging,” he said. “Whoever touched it last doesn’t matter, it’s still 1-0. Jason (Chimera) has a better celebration than I do, so I’m glad they gave it to him.”

It was the second straight game where the Blue Jackets won in exciting fashion. Monday against Chicago, Nikolai Zherdev scored with 24 seconds and Jaroslav Balastik scored in overtime to rally Columbus to a 4-3 win.

The game saw the Columbus return of Tyler Wright, Todd Marchant and Francois Beauchemin, who were involved in the transactions to bring Sergei Fedorov to Columbus. Wright received a warm reception when he was announced as a starter for the Mighty Ducks.

Denis was peppered by shots, especially in the first 10 minutes of the game. He also had a game-saving stop on a break-a-way from Marchant in the second period. In the last two games, Denis has 82 saves and has allowed two or fewer goals in nine of his 18 starts (5-4). Denis is 3-2 in his last five starts.

“I’ve felt pretty good ever since I got back from my injury,” Denis said.
“Everything has to fall in place. Some night, I feel good and we were not able to put it all together. Tonight, it just happened to. A few more screens or tips and we might be looking at a different result.”

Columbus had several opportunities at Giguere. Rick Nash and Zherdev almost connected twice on one-timers and Trevor Letowski had at least three good shots that either just missed or Giguere stopped.

The game was not all good for the Blue Jackets. The team was unsuccessful on 10 power play attempts. Also, two Jackets left the game because of injury.

Adam Foote left the game early in the third period with an hip injury, while Jan Hrdina left in the second period with a chest bruise. Zherdev also took a hard hit by the Ducks’ Joffrey Lupul late in the first, but only missed one shift.

“I don’t think we played a great game, but we had a lot of scoring chances and we gave up a lot of chances,” Jackets coach Gerard Gallant said. “Everybody chipped in, fortunately it was an ugly goal that won it for us.”

Columbus begins a stretch of seven out of eight games on the road beginning Friday night in Chicago. After a New Year’s Eve game in Detroit, the team heads west for games in San Jose, Colorado and Phoenix before coming home to host Pittsburgh on Jan. 11.