Predators take a bite out of the Jackets with 4-3 overtime win.
by Dave Weissman, Columbus Wired

The Nashville Predators extended their season winning season with their victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets in a 4-3 overtime victory at Nationwide Arena.  Nashville (42-18-4) has dominated the Jackets this year winning all seven contests by a goal margin of 26-11.  The fourteen points gained against Columbus have helped propel the Predators into first place in the Western Conference, one point ahead of the Detroit Red Wings. 

Paul Kariya, J.P. Dumont, Vernon Fidler scored in regulation for Nashville and Alexander Radulov buried the puck during the shootout to earn the win for the Predators. 

Head coach Ken Hitchcock went with Ty Conklin as his starter over last night’s winning goaltender Fredrik Norrena.  The Jackets had hoped to win both games of back-to-backs.  They defeated the Rangers 3-2 last night in New York.  This is the 17^th of 21 back-to-back games.  Columbus is a combined 15-16-3 in back-to-backs.

“Both teams came off of tough games with travel and we stayed at it and the third period was excellent," Hitchcock said.

At 6:54 of the 1^st period, during a Nashville power play after Jody Shelley was given a questionable two extra minutes for a boarding penalty, Conklin got a piece of the slapshot by defenseman Kimmo Timonen, but could not control the rebound.  Paul Kariya was there waiting to clean up the mess, tallying his 20^th goal of the season.  Nashville is 17-1-0 when Kariya scores.  He has 13 goals, 19 assists in 30 career games against the Jackets.

Chris Mason got the start for Nashville.  He now has posted a 3-0 record this year against Columbus and a 4-1 career record.  

Columbus got a bit of payback at the start of the 2^nd period.  With the Jackets swarming the net on a power play, Mason was able to withstand the first shot, but lost his stick in the process.  Columbus was able to keep the puck in the zone and after passing around a bit, David Vyborny put a pass into the slot which found Fredrik Modin in front of the net.  Modin’s tip in from 10-feet was his 15^th goal of the season and tied the score 1-1.

But, as fans at Nationwide have experienced too many times, and just 1:25 seconds later JP Dumont was parked off in front of the net.  He corralled the centering pass from Radulov and tipped it past Conklin.  It was the 16^th goal of the season for Dumont. 

And then at 4:11, Aaron Johnson turned the puck over to David Legwand.  Legwand fired a 53-foot shot which Conklin initially saved.  But it was Vernon Fidler who collected the rebound and was able to fire into the open cage to put Nashville up 3-1.

Columbus tallied goals by Jody Shelley and Ron Hainsey in the 3^rd period to tie the score and force overtime. 

At 4:30 Nickolai Zherdev skated the puck into the Nashville zone and turned defenseman Ryan Sutter inside out.  Mason would make the initial stop, but Shelley kept whacking at the puck and it eventually found the back of the net to close the gap to 3-2.

"It was an ugly goal. It was one of those goals, you crashed the net, puck pops free and he puts it in,” said Hitchcock.

At 10:56, Modin tried to jam it past Mason while Vyborny was also in there in there digging for it.  The puck came out between the circles and Ron Hainsey was there to fire a shot past Mason to tie the score 3-3.

“They've been, actually, pretty good in third periods,” said Nashville head coach Barry Trotz.  “They've come back a few times on teams. We knew it was going to be tough, and we let them skate a little more than we wanted to."

In overtime, David Vyborny hit the post, Zherdev was stuffed by Mason and Nash could not bury it.

"All in all, considering it's the No. 1 team in the West, it was a good comeback,” Hainsey said.  “Shootouts are shootouts."

Columbus now heads out for games against Colorado, Dallas and Phoenix before returning home for a contest against the L.A. Kings on March 7^th.

GAME NOTES:

It was head coach Ken Hitchcock’s 800^th game as an NHL head coach.

It was defenseman Aaron Johnson’s 100^th NHL game.

Bryan Berard and Ole-Kristian Tollefsen were scratches.