Jackets magical week continues

Blue Jackets Hockey

Jackets magical week continues with 4-3 win over Pens (3/12/09)
by Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

What a week for the Columbus Blue Jackets. After knocking off the top teams in each Conference in Boston and Detroit this week, the Jackets knocked off the hottest team in the NHL, Pittsburgh, 4-3 in a shootout Thursday night.

It wasn’t easy. Columbus scored in each of the periods to take a 3-0 lead early through the third, but the Penguins battled back and tied the game with three goals in a matter of minutes to force overtime and the shootout.

Kristian Huselius, who scored in regulation, beat Penguins’ goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury between the legs for the only goal of the shootout.

“I saw (Rick) Nash and (Jason) Williams try to deke and (Fleury) had really quick legs, so I wanted to shoot a quick five-hole,” Huselius said. “I’m just glad it went in.”

Jason Williams and Antoine Vermette each scored and assisted on each other’s goals for the Jackets. Fedor Tyutin and Rusty Klesla also added helpers for Columbus, who tied a franchise record of 35 wins in a season.

Steve Mason, who was questionable with a cold early in the day, stopped Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in the shootout to pick up his 28th win of the season. The win set a Jackets franchise record for wins in a season, beating Marc Denis’ mark of 27 in 2002-03.

“It was a special night,” Mason said. “It does not matter to me what the score is or what happens during the game. My demeanor never changes out there.”

Williams has a five-game point streak (3-4-7), while Vermette has at least a point (1-3-4) in all three games he’s played in Columbus.

The win was seen by a franchise record 19,167 fans in Nationwide Arena and put the team at 76 points, a point behind fifth-place Vancouver. Columbus has won three of four and four of five.

Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock, who was honored before the game for his 500th career win, said the crowd was great—except for the several thousand Penguins fans in attendance.

“The building wasn’t loud enough because we had folks in the wrong colored sweaters here, too many of them,” he said. “The building was louder last game (versus Boston) because we had all Blue Jackets fans. Someone let all those other people in today and it screwed up the sound level.”

Huselius scored his 19th on a break-a-away. He took a feed from Tyutin at the blue line, toe-dragged and beat Fleury low with a shot from the dot at 8:42 of the first.

Williams gave the Jackets a 2-0 lead off a from-the-knees feed from Vermette at 16:59 of the second. Vermette battled two Pittsburgh defenders and found Williams camped in the crease. Williams backhanded the shot top shelf for his 15th.

“That’s a set play—I like going down on my knees like that,” Vermette joked. “I tried to get there a quick as I could. I thought Jason was there; he was in great position. It wasn’t a great pass, but he took it and had a good finish on it.”

Vermette then scored on a slap shot a minute into the third off a feed from Williams to put the Jackets up 3-0.

Pittsburgh got back in the game with three goals in 3:25 seconds. First, Sergei Gonchar scored on the power play on a slap shot that deflected off Jan Hejda’s stick at 8:33.

Pascal Dupuis then scored off a feed from Malkin at 9:53 off a Jiri Novotny turnover.

Maxime Talbot tied the game two minutes later off a feed from Malkin.

“We took some penalties, they score and then it seemed like the ice tilted,” Jackets defenseman Mike Commodore said. “They brought the heat—it seemed like they had eight guys on the ice. We messed around with the puck too much, me included.”

Pittsburgh outshot Columbus 41-38 including 22-4 in the third period and overtime. The loss snapped a seven-game winning streak for the Penguins, who were 9-1 in their last 10.

“(Columbus) played strong defensively,” Crosby said. “We didn’t get a lot of speed in the first two periods. We played into their hands by turning the puck over a lot. In the third, we put some pressure on them, got some turnovers and some good goals.”

The Blue Jackets travel to Chicago Friday at 8:30 p.m. and return home to host Detroit Sunday at 5 p.m.