Columbus gives St. Louis the Blues
By Dave Weissman, Columbus Wired

The Columbus Blue Jackets extended their winning streak to three games with a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues at Nationwide Arena. Derrick Walser, Fredrik Modin and Geoff Platt scored; Manny Malhotra added a goal and an assist and Jason Chimera tallied three assists in the win in front of the 16,007 home fans.

Jackets goaltender Fredrik Norrena (22-19-3), filling in since November for injured goaltender Pascal Leclaire, is trying to become the first Blue Jacket goaltender to end the season with a .500 record or better. He made 25 saves for the win.

“He's one of the top goalies in the NHL in the last 25 games. Look at his goals against average, his save percentage and he's up with every top guy,” said head coach Ken Hitchcock. “He's fitting comfortably into playing on a nightly basis.”

Columbus got things started at 3:29 of the 1st period. Jason Chimera took a shot from outside the circle. Walser jumped in, sneaking past the defense and slammed the rebound past goaltender Jason Bacashihua. St. Louis has given up 10 power-play goals in the last six games.

Shortly afterwards, St. Louis was given a 5-on-3 power play as Zherdev (holding) and Chimera (cross checking) sat in the penalty box. The Blues took advantage at 5:30 as Doug Weight scored his 13th goal of the year as he buried a cross ice pass from Glen Metropolit to tie the score at 1-1.

Columbus would gain the lead again 2-1 at 14:28 of the period. Jason Chimera notched his second assist of the night. He went into the near corner and beat two defenders for the puck. He was able to throw it out to a charging Manny Malhotra. Malhotra’s snap shot from 25-feet found its way past Bacashihua for his 8th goal of the season. Malhotra has tallied 5 points in his last 12 games.

Columbus extended the lead to 3-2 at 4:57 of the 2nd period on Fredrik Modin’s 20th goal of the season and 400th point of his career. He came off the bench and grabbed a nice feed from David Vyborny that he backhanded past Bacashihua. Alexander Svitov was not given a point on the play, but it was his screen of Bacashihua that allowed Modin the easy score.

“Even though playoffs are out of this picture, it's good to know in the back of your head to put a start to next season that we can play well and can put some wins together,” said Modin

Geoff Platt added his 4th goal of the season in the 3rd period with a nasty left-handed wrister over Bacashihua to make the final score 4-1. Bacashihua (1-5-2) stopped 22 shots in the loss.

St. Louis has become a team with similar paths. It was between St. Louis and Columbus when Ken Hitchcock was hired by the Jackets. Andy Murray, also interviewed by Columbus, landed the job for the Blues. Since his hiring, Andy Murray has guided the Blues to a 24-15-8 record and overall the team is 31-32-12. Columbus is 31-37-7 and 26-24-5 under Hitchcock.

“They played better than we did,” Murray said. “I think our whole team was not as good as we needed to be. We're trying to get better everyday and today we didn't make a step ahead, we kind of went back."

Columbus has only three more home games, playing five of their last eight games against its division foes Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis. The two clubs meet again in St. Louis on Tuesday.