Mason, Jackets hold off Canucks  (12/01/08)
by Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired

The 300th home game in the history of the Columbus Blue Jackets will go down as an instant classic and another coming out party for Steve Mason.  The rookie goaltender stopped a flurry of shots in the final two minutes to lead the Jackets to a 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks in front of 13,299 in Nationwide Arena Monday night.

The Canucks (14-9-2) pulled goaltender Cory Schneider with Fedor Tyutin in the penalty box for the two-man advantage for the final 1:58. Mason stood on his head and stopped shot after shot including a glove save on the ice on a Kyle Wellwood shot late.

“I don’t know what I did (on Wellwood’s shot),” Mason said. “I remember when the puck was in the corner, I took a quick glance to se how much time was left on the board and it wasn’t ticking down fast enough. But we closed it out and that was probably our biggest kill of the year so far.”

Mason, who improves to 6-2-1, stopped 29 shots in a game where Columbus (11-10-3) rallied from two one-goal deficits to pull out a victory. The Jackets came into the game 0-6-3 when the opposition scores first. They are the last team in the NHL to win after giving up the first goal.
 

Kristian Huselius scored the game-winner with 4:44 remaining off the hard work of Rick Nash. The Jackets captain, who was battling two Canucks on the sidewall, made a centering pass on the red line to feed Huselius with 4:44 remaining in the game for the go-ahead goal.

“It was a great pass, a great effort,” Huselius said. “Rick caught two guys playing him and made a great pass to me and I just had to one-time it.”

Fredrik Modin and Andrew Murray each scored their third goals of the season for the Jackets. Nash had two assists and Huselius had one.

Kyle Wellwood and Kevin Bieksa scored power play goals for Vancouver. Canucks goaltender Curtis Sanford started the game, but left after the first intermission because of back spasms. Schneider played the final two periods and stopped 15 of 18 shots.

The Jackets also finally broke a 0-for-23 skid on the power play in the second period with Modin’s goal.

“The power play goal was a goal that we’ve had those shots every game now,” Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said. “You want those to go in and (that one) did today, which is a really good sign.”

Wellwood scored on the power play 3:27 into the second period. Alex Edler hit a slap shot from just inside the blue line. Mason made a save, but the puck bounced right to Wellwood, who beat Mason’s stretched arm.

Vancouver almost took a two-goal lead minutes later. Bieksa put a shot on Mason and the puck flipped over his head. Marc Methot dove to the ice and whisked the puck away with his glove as it was sliding towards the goal line.

“I was lucky,” Methot said. “It was a broken play and the last thing I wanted to do was cover it up with my hand and take a penalty. My instinct told me to slap it out of there—I was fortunate enough to prevent it.”

Modin tied the game off a feed from Huselius on the power play at 9:30. It was the Jackets first power play goal since Rick Nash scored against Edmonton on Nov. 18.

The Canucks regained the lead with a slap shot from the blue line from Bieksa at 5:28 of the third on the power play.

Murray tied the game at two at 9:03 of the third when he tipped in a Mike Commodore shot.

Even with the power play goal, the Jackets went 1-for-8 with the man advantage. Vancouver, losers of three straight, went 2-for-4 and outshot the Jackets 32-29 for the game and 18-8 in the final 20 minutes.

“We gave ourselves a chance to win in the third,” Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said. “We took a 2-1 lead and were unable to close it down.”

Columbus begins a three-game West Coast road trip Thursday in San Jose. The team returns to Nationwide Arena to host Nashville on Dec. 11.