Columbus Loses Seesaw Battle 7-4 to Detroit
By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

If the Columbus Blue Jackets move to the Eastern Conference next season, one player the team won’t miss playing on a regular basis is Detroit’s Daniel Cleary.

The Red Wings right winger scored three goals, including the game-winner, to lead his team over Columbus 7-4 in front of 17,408 in Nationwide Arena Thursday.

Cleary’s performance overshadowed David Vyborny’s 100th career NHL goal and the fact that the Jackets rallied from three goals to take a brief lead before the Red Wings took over the last 15 minutes of the game.

“Dan Clearly kept battling and battling to find his place in the NHL,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “Now he’s on a nice line with Robert Lang. It’s nice to see good things happen to him.”

Lang assisted on all three of Cleary’s goals. In four games against the Blue Jackets this season, Clearly has seven goals and two assists and is becoming a dreaded “Jackets killer.”

“He goes to the net and there are guys around him that feed him,” Jackets captain Adam Foote said. “That line is playing with some confidence and they know where each other are.”

"Playing with Lang has been a great opportunity for me. He has had a huge impact on me," Cleary said. "Keeps getting me the puck all the time."

Pavel Datsyuk added two goals and an assist, while Henrik Zetterberg and Danny Markov each scored one. Robert Lang had three assists for Detroit, who has beat Columbus in three of four meetings this season.

For the Jackets, Vyborny had a goal and an assist. Ron Hainsey, Dan Fritsche, and Foote also scored for the Jackets. Fredrik Norrena played well at times in goal, but gave up six goals on 35 Red Wing shots. Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said that Ty Conklin will start Friday in Minnesota.

The Red Wings struck first, scoring four minutes, 21 seconds into the game. Robert Lang hit a slap shot from the blue line and Cleary tapped in the rebound.

Cleary scored his second of the game with four minutes remaining in the first period when he beat Norrena under his glove off a feed from Lang.

Zetterberg took a pass from Brett Lebda and put the puck over an extended Norrena at 8:45 of the second to put the Wings up 3-0.

Hainsey got Columbus on the board just under four minutes later with a one-timer from the right face-off dot. This came after the Jackets went 12:32 to start the second without a shot on goal.

Vyborny then got the Jackets to with a goal at with six minutes remaining in the second when he stole the puck from Nicklas Lidstrom and used a backhand shot over Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood.

“100 goals is good for me, but it’s not good for the team (tonight),” Vyborny said. “We made a couple of mistakes and they are a great team that made us pay for them. They showed how to play at the end of the game.”

Hitchcock added that Vyborny is, “just flat out our best player right now. He’s playing terrific, he’s winning battles and (he’s) our best scorer.”

Fritsche tied the game on the power play at 3:15 of the third. He lost the face-off to the right of Osgood, but Niklas Kornvall turned the puck over and Fritsche tapped in the loose puck.

Foote put the Jackets up 4-3 with a slap shot from the blue line at 5:17. The power play goal was off an assist from Vyborny.

“When we work that hard to come back from that deficit, we have to find a way to win that game,” Foote said. “It’s a lesson we don’t want to learn again. We knew they were going to turn it up, so we have to make better decisions and be more poised in our own end.”

Datsyuk tied the game with ease at 11:24. He skated freely to the right face-off dot and went top shelf on Norrena.

"It would have been easy for us to fold, but we didn't," Babcock said.  "We scored and got it started, and we went from there."

“The first 10, 11, 13 minutes o the third period was pretty much flawless for us,” Hainsey said. “We got some traffic on the power plays. … Then one turnover and one of their better players (Datsyuk) makes a great play and it’s tied.”

Cleary won the game with a tip in off a Kornvall shot on the power play at 14:41. Datsyuk added an insurance goal at 18:45 when he bounced the puck off the leg pad of Norrena. Markov added an empty net goal with 1:23 remaining.

Detroit outshot Columbus 36-25. Osgood made 19 saves for the Wings. Columbus converted on two-of-four power play opportunities, while Detroit scored on one-of-three with the man advantage.

The Jackets play in Minnesota Friday night then return home to host Chicago on New Years Eve at 7 p.m.