Edmonton whips up on Jackets 7-2
By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

It’s not the amount of shots you take in an NHL game; it’s the quality of shot. Despite being outshot 39-19, the Edmonton Oilers whipped the Columbus Blue Jackets 7-2 in front of 12,689 in Nationwide Arena Tuesday night.

The score is misleading as the Jackets outplayed the Oilers at even strength. The difference was the specialty teams. Columbus was one for seven with the man-advantage and Edmonton was two for three.

“We played well enough five-on-five to win,” said Jason Chimera. “We can’t kill penalties and couldn’t get a goal on the power play. That’s the game right there—our special teams suck and that’s what cost us the hockey game.”

For the second straight home game the Jackets have been blown out (5-2 loss to Phoenix on Nov. 12). It’s also the second time in a week that Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock has called out the effort of some of his players.

“We have people who need to play better,” he said without naming names. “We’re getting effort from some guys, but we have guys who need to flat out play better.”

Oilers goaltender Dwayne Roloson was the star of the game, stopping 37 shots. He was coming off a 4-0 loss in Detroit Monday night and was barley tested despite the amount of shots he faced.

“He was really on top of his game and when your goalie out plays the other guy, it’s normally a pretty god indication of the result,” Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish said. “Rollie really played well (Monday) night too and was terrific tonight.”

Shawn Horcoff led the Oiler offensive charge with a goal and an assist. Sheldon Souray, Andrew Cogliano, Lubomir Visnovsky and Tom Gilbert each had a goal and an assist for Edmonton. Dustin Penner and Marc Pouliot also scored and Ales Hemsky added three assists.

Kristian Huselius and Rick Nash scored for the Jackets, while Derick Brassard added two assists. Pascal Leclaire was not as terrible as the seven-goals allowed seems. His defense was pretty soft in front of him.

“It’s done. It’s over,” Leclaire said. “7-2 or 2-1 loss, it’s still zero points in the standings for us. We don’t play for personal stats here; we play for the team winning. You have to forget about it and move on. It’s too long of a season to worry about this one.”

Souray gave the Oilers an early lead with a slap shot from the blue line at 5:38 of the first with the Jackets down a man.

Souray then fed Cogliano at 13:14 on a break-a-way to give Edmonton a 2-0 lead.

Despite being outshot and not putting a shot on goal for nearly 20 minutes, the Oilers made it 3-0 with a one-timer by Pouliot off a feed from Cogliano at 12:49 of the second.

Huselius finally got a shot past Roloson with a low shot from the right circle at 18:03. Nash screened Roloson on the play.

Edmonton got the goal back on the power play when Gilbert tapped in a rebound off Horcoff shot at 7:44 of the third.

Nash scored on a second effort off a shot from Brassard to get the Jackets to within 4-2 at 9:59. However just over two minutes later, the Oilers got the goal back from Penner, who beat Leclaire stick side.

“The fifth goal was a killer goal,” Hitchcock said. “We needed a save on the fifth goal; it’s the one that broke our back.”

Horcoff and Visnovsky scored just over a minute apart for the final scores. In all, the Oilers scored three goals in 3:03 and outshot the Jackets 11-10 in the final 20 minutes.

Leclaire had 12 saves in the game. By comparison, in five previous meetings with the Oilers, he had given up 12 goals against.


Columbus plays in Atlanta Saturday night and return home to host the Coyotes on Thanksgiving Eve at 7 p.m.