Even with effort, Columbus loses to Colorado 5-3

By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

The best offensive effort of the early season was wasted Wednesday night by the Columbus Blue Jackets in a 5-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

Columbus out shot Colorado 44-22 but could not convert on its 13 scoring chances and only one of eight on the power play in the loss. The Avalanche are now 18-1-2 against the Jackets.

Brad Richardson had the biggest goal of the game for the Avs. Just 27 seconds after the Jackets pulled to within a goal late in the game, Richardson pick pocketed Rick Nash and easily scored on Pascal Leclaire to put the game out of reach. Columbus then failed to convert on a two-man advantage in the waning moments of the game.

“It was my mistake,” Nash said. “It was a nice play (by Richardson), but it’s unacceptable to give giveaways right at our at blue line or their blue line.”

Brett McLean, Joe Sakic, Mark Rycroft and Wojetk Wolski also scored for Colorado, while Jose Theodore stopped 41 shots.

Fredrik Modin and David Vyborny each had a goal and assist for the Jackets and Sergei Fedorov scored his first goal of the season. The team’s 44 shots on goal is a season high after only shooting 36 shots in the last two games.

The team’s offensive stars finally showed up as Fedorov, Nikolai Zherdev, Vyborny and Nash combined for 25 shots. The team also had 22 shots on goal while on the power play. It was the mistakes that gave Colorado the edge.

“We took some good steps offensively, but we still have to get away from making the major mistakes we have been making,” Jackets coach Gerard Gallant said. “You can’t go from playing wide-open offensive hockey to committing big turnovers. I was happy with a lot of things and I think it was a positive step, but you can’t give up five goals.”

Paul Stastny and Wolski had a give-and-go to the crease and Wolski snapped it over the left shoulder of Leclaire to give Colorado an early 1-0 lead.

As the Jackets burned off a power play, Colorado struck again. Tyler Arnason slid a cross-ice through the legs of Ian Laperriere to McLean, who slapped the puck into the net at 9:03.

Minutes later, the Jackets top line finally clicked. Fedorov beat the Avalanche defender to the right corner and slid the puck around the boards to Nash. He tapped the puck to Vyborny, who passed it back to an open Fedorov. The Russian flipped the puck top shelf on Jose Theodore from the goal line.

“They were dangerous tonight,” Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said. “A couple of guys for them had the puck, but we were fortunate to score (enough to win).”

Sakic scored a power play goal at four minutes of the second period off a feed from Andrew Brunette. Rycroft then scored on a rebound at 15:18 to put Colorado up 4-1.

Modin cut the deficit in half when he hit a backhand shot off a pass from Nikolai Zherdev at 18:50 on the power play.

Vyborny then hit a slap shot from the right point off a pass from Modin to bring the Jackets within a goal with 5:34 remaining in the game.

The defense wasn’t bad, with three of the five goals allowed coming on odd-man rushes.

“Colorado is really good on the rush and you have to watch (for guys) when you are away from the puck,” Leclaire said. “It’s such an underrated part of the game. If you understand that early, you can take away some of their chances.”

The Jackets return to the ice Friday by hosting Calgary at 7 p.m.