Jackets dominated by Panthers, 5-2
By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

There was little to be thankful Wednesday night at Nationwide Arena as the Columbus Blue Jackets fell to the Florida Panthers 5-2 in front of 13,326 irritated fans. Noted Jackets killer Tomas Vokoun continued his dominance of the Jackets, allowing two goals on 34 shots. Vokoun, who used to play for Nashville, improves to 19-6-0-1 against Columbus.

For the Jackets, Rick Nash scored his 15th goal of the season and Curtis Glencross added a tip-in on the power play. Pascal Leclaire was not sharp, giving up five goals on 29 shots.

“I don’t know if we didn’t respect them enough,” Jackets captain Adam Foote said. “We did not compete for 60 minutes. They got what we gave them—I mean that with no disrespect. We got into trouble and didn’t play our way.”

Columbus has lost seven of its last eight games and has fallen to just one game above .500 (9-7-4). Thanksgiving serves as the one-year anniversary of the hiring of Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock. Since his hiring, the team has played .500 hockey.

Rostislav Olesz had a goal and an assist to lead the Panthers. Ruslan Salei, Bryan Allen, Jay Bouwmeester and Gregory Campbell also scored.

"We talked about it before the game and during the break, to try and get more traffic," Olesz said.

Glencross redirected a Rostislav Klesla slap shot from the blue line to put the Jackets up 1-0 just over three minutes into the game on the power play.

The second period continued give the Jackets trouble as the Panthers dominated play and scored a pair of goals to briefly take a 2-1 lead.

Salei redirected a Rostislav Olesz shot at 1:46 on the power play to tie the game at one.

Allen gave Florida a 2-1 lead at 12:17 when he put a shot under the leg pad of Leclaire.

Nash tied the game at two with a second remaining in the second. Ron Hainsey took a short-range shot and the puck hit off the crossbar. Nash was there to tap in the rebound.

That was as close as the game would get. The Panthers dominated the third period with three goals in just over three minutes—two on the power play. Columbus has dropped to 0-7-4 when tied or trailing going into the third stanza.

“We have to take a little more pride in the third period and battle,” Glencross said. “It’s hurt us quite a few times and it’s something we have to work on.

Olesz scored the go-ahead goal with a backhand shot that slipped past Leclaire’s glove at 10:45 of the third on the power play.

Bouwmeester scored just over two minutes later off a feed from Richard Zednick to put Florida up 4-2. Campbell made it 5-2 a minute later.

“We were loose in our own end,” Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock. “This is the first time we had a lot of people who didn’t bring it. We didn’t compete at the level we needed to compete at, for the first time at home in a long time.”

The Jackets outshot the Panthers 36-29. Florida went 3-of-6 on the power play, while Columbus went 1-6.

Columbus travels to Minnesota for a matinee game on Friday, then returns home to host Detroit Saturday at 7 p.m.