Jackets “Too Cute” In Ugly 3-1 Loss To Flames
By Steve Sirk

In the film Raiders of the Lost Arc, Indiana Jones does battle with a mesmerizing and skillful swordsman on the streets of Cairo. The swordsman puts on a dazzling display of sabre-gymnastics. Unimpressed with his adversary, Jones pulls out his pistol and shoots the swordsman dead.

There are lessons to be learned from that encounter. Especially for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who played the part of the swordsman in their 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames on Friday night.

Coach Gerard Gallant felt his team was all style and little substance. “We didn’t play physical,” he said. “We played a cute game and it cost us. We turned the puck over. We played maybe 30 minutes the whole night. When you play a team like Calgary, it’s straight ahead hockey— they dump it in, they forecheck and they dominated us down low in our end. At the other end, we would try to make cute plays.”

In other words, while the Jackets were focused on the razzle-dazzle, the unimpressed Flames shot to kill. “Those cute plays in the neutral zone by (Jackets winger Nikolai) Zherdev aren’t going to work,” said Gallant. “He wasn’t alone. It was a lot more than him, but he does it more than anybody else. When you play a good team like Calgary, they take advantage and they take your body every time…it’s not going to work. Every time we tried one of those plays, it either ended up in the back of our net, or ended up deep in our zone for 15 seconds of every shift. Then we’re trying to get guys off the ice and we’re taking penalties…it’s frustrating.”

The first two periods saw the Flames thoroughly dominate the Jackets. The puck was frequently pinned deep in the Columbus end, and the Flames won an overwhelming percentage of the physical encounters. Through hustle and muscle, they kept plays alive and won the corner battles. As a result, the Jackets were gasping for air. In one three-minute stretch in the second period, the Jackets only cleared the puck so far as center ice once. Poor Duvie Wescott worked the entire shift.

Hockey is a strange game. Despite being outplayed, the Jackets found themselves in the game from a mathematical sense, trailing only 1-0 after two periods. Oddly enough, they had to feel bad about the goal they gave up. Goalie Marc Denis had already spectacularly stoned a wide-open Jarome Iginla (41 goals in 2003-04) on three separate occasions. But the Flames drew first blood on a ho-hum wrister from the left circle just 1:53 into the second period. The puck had eyes.

The lamp was on before Denis had a clue. In fact, he still doesn’t have one. “I wish I could tell you what happened,” he said. “I didn’t see a thing there. It was a double screen. I don’t know where it went through, and I don’t know how. A player posting up near the net was all I saw.”

So for two dominant periods of hockey, including glorious chances snuffed out by Denis, all the Flames had to show for themselves was a seeing-eye wrist-shot past a blindfolded goalie.

The Jackets, meanwhile, continued their power play futility. By the end of the second period, with five squandered power plays on the evening, they bumped their season-opening streak to 0-for-14. Watching the Jackets on the power play is like watching the Cleveland Indians bat with runners in scoring position.

However, that would change just 27 ticks into the third, when Trevor Letowski scored on the continuation of that 14th power play. Charging hard to the net, Letowski banged a shot off of Flames goalie Mikka Kiprusoff. The rebound was kicked in by a Calgary defenseman. For a team playing cute, it was an ugly goal that drew them level.

More hockey strangeness…the Blue Jackets played much better in the third period, yet that is when the game was lost. Barely four minutes after the equalizer, Iginla blew past Jackets newcomer Francois Beauchamin and forced another spectacular pad save from Denis. Unfortunately, the rebound fell to Daymond Langkow, who was trailing the play unmarked.

“When you’re struggling, you can’t have breakdowns,” said captain Luke Richardson. “You can’t let someone walk in and pot a winning goal without touching him.”

But that’s what happened. And then with 25 seconds to play, Darren McCarty killed the game with a beautiful 17-foot wrister that found the upper corner to Denis’ glove side. 3-1 Flames.

The Jackets can take a few positives from the game. Denis was superb in net, although afterward, true to form, he said he’s not happy with his performance unless it’s a win.

And the penalty kill rebuffed eight Calgary power plays, which is an obvious positive, but with a hidden negative. “The penalty kill did a great job,” said Gallant, “but when you’re overused, you don’t have much left. Second period, it cost us big-time. We couldn’t create much offense because the guys were killing penalties the whole time.”

“That transfers into your 5-on-5 game,” agreed center Todd Marchant. “When you’re killing penalties shift after shift after shift, it’s hard to get out of that mode and get on the offensive.”

It’s also hard to get offensive when you’re all flash and no crash.

“As a team, we need to get back to playing a meat and potatoes kind of game,” said Marchant. “That’s the way you win hockey games in this league.”