Vyborny Notches Two Goals To Defeat Blues

By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

David Vyborny continued to prove Wednesday night that he does not necessarily need Rick Nash on his line to score goals. The Jackets’ right winger scored a pair goals and Todd Marchant scored his first of the season to lead the Columbus Blue Jackets past the St. Louis Blues 3-1 in front of 16,058 at Nationwide Arena.

Nikolai Zherdev and Manny Malhotra each assisted on the two Vyborny goals. Marc Denis stopped 24 of the 25 shots.

“Those three a playing really well together and that’s what we need,” Jack ets coach Gerard Gallant said. “They are getting the ice time because they are one of the top lines and that’s what I expect from them.”

The Blues (2-10-3) have lost nine straight and remains winless (0-4-2) on the road this season. Lee Stempniak ended Denis’ shutout bid by scoring a power play goal with 36.3 second left in the game.

The Jackets (5-11) continued to play well, building on their losses in Calgary and Vancouver last week. The passes were crisp and the team controlled the puck when entering the St. Louis zone.

On the other hand, the Jackets continued to camp out in the penalty box. Columbus was penalized 13 times, including several hooking calls. The penalty kill was stellar, stopping nine of 10 Blues’ power plays. The game also marked the first time this season that Columbus held a 2-0 lead.

“We controlled the game and you could see our confidence building up,” Denis said. “I’d be in left field saying that we dominated the game from top to bottom, but we got into penalty trouble again. There’s still some things we have to work on, but we controlled the scoreboard. When you get the first one, you’re playing on edge. When you get the second, all of a sudden you’re playing with control. The third one was the big one.”

As the final horn went off, both teams met at the blue line and Rostislav Klesla and Eric Brewer had a heavyweight bout. Both received game misconduct for the incident. Earlier in game, Jason Chimera and Jamal Mayers hooked up in the late in the second period and Jody Shelley and Aaron Downey tangled midway through the third. The two teams get a rematch next Wednesday at Nationwide.

Malhotra set up the Jackets’ first goal with good puck control. He took the puck behind the St. Louis net, skated around the net and touch passed the puck to Vyborny, who tapped it in from the slot at 17:41. The goal extended his point-scoring streak to six games (5-3-6). He leads the team with six goals.

Vyborny scored his second goal on a two-on-one rush off a pass from Zherdev at 2:07 of the second period. The play began when Malhotra stole a pass close to the Jackets’ crease.

“On the first one, I just tried to be high, wait for the puck and Manny finally found me,” Vyborny said. “On the second, I went back and forth with (Zherdev) and he passed it back to me and I just tried to hit the net. If felt good for everybody, especially me.”

Marchant scored when he stole the puck from Dallas Drake in the corner and took the puck above the right shoulder of Blues goalie Patrick Lalime at 2:47 of the third.

“I know over the last 10 games I’ve been getting some opportunities and a lot of shots on net,” Marchant said. “They just have not been going in. It seems like whenever I’d get a bounce, it would go the other way, so (this) is nice and hopefully it will continue.”

The Jackets host Edmonton Friday at 7 p.m.