Nashville still owns Jackets.
By Dave Weissman, Columbus Wired

Nashville, powered by goals from Jan Hlavac and Radek Bonk thirty-two second apart fueled the Predators to a 2-1 victory, keeping them in the hunt for the eighth and final playoff spot.

When asked if this loss meant the Jackets were officially out of the playoffs, head coach Ken Hitchcock looked up and said, “yes.”

Columbus finished up the season series with the Darth Vadar of hockey, the Nashville Predators. Columbus has only won one game in the last 15 against the Preds with the kicker being the last game, on Tuesday in Nashville. That game did not sit well with the Jackets as Jordin Tootoo took a run at a few Columbus players at the end of regulation.

Second to last home game for the Jackets, who took more shots (42) than any game of this season.

At 17:07 of the first period, as Tootoo took his first shift of the game, the 15,495 fans in attendance let the Preds know their anger with them. It did not take long for Tootoo and Jackets enforcer Jared Boll to exchange pleasantries.

Boll got his body in tight and gave Tootoo a few licks. It was a fair match up which ended with Boll laying an uppercut and a few shots before taking Tootoo down to the ice. Tootoo left the penalty box and the ice at the first timeout at 13:50 and went to the dressing room to get fixed up.

That was the best moment for the Jackets on this night because on the ice, Nashville goaltender Dan Ellis continued his two-game shutout streak of the Jackets, improving his record to 22-10-3.

"We could have done a lot more. We only have a few people who are thinking in terms of scoring,” said Hitchcock. “We're teaching people how to work, but the scoring part doesn't come naturally. We have to spend some time on that."

Jackets goaltender Fredrik Norrena (10-18-5) made his eighth start in a row while Pascal Leclaire heals up from a concussion. During that span, Norrena’s record is 3-5.

Nashville is still in contention for the playoffs (84 points, 9th place and just 2 pts. behind Vancouver and 4 points behind Colorado for the final playoff spot). They finish the season with remaining away games against the Red Wings and Blackhawks with a home-home series with St. Louis in the middle. They have played in the playoffs the past three years.

"We wanted to get through that first period. I felt that was real important for us,” said Preds head coach Barry Trotz. “I know emotionally they were very jacked up and very focused on trying to win that hockey game tonight.”

Nashville started the second period with a little fire in their belly. Hlavac got things started when he tipped a Ryan Sutter shot past Norrena for a 1-0 lead. Bonk followed up :38 seconds later when his wrist shot got past Norrena who was caught moving left to right.

“We had a tough defensive zone and we let them have an easy shot and an easy tip in,” Jackets captain Rick Nash said. “Freddie really had no chance. And then they kind of had a lucky second goal.”

Throughout the game, the Jackets led in shots taken, but Ellis stopped everything thrown his way.

"They had 43 shots but they weren't as many hard quality chances,” said Trotz. “It wasn't a hard 43 shots, but they had some chances."

Columbus now heads on the road for games against Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis before finishing up the season with the home finale on April 6th against the Blues in the second of home-home, back-to-back-games.