Montreal rallies, but Jackets win 4-3 in shootout (11/08/08)
by Dave Weissman, Columbus Wired (photos by Dave Weissman)

The Jackets played host to one of the Original Six teams, the Montreal Canadians, tonight at Nationwide Arena. Derick Bressard and Kristian Husalius scored in the shootout to give the Columbus Blue Jackets a 4-3 win over the Montreal Canadians and extend their consecutive point streak to five games.

Columbus tallied the first goal at 6:52 in the first period when R.J. Umberger scored on a rebound off a shot by Jason Chimera. For Umberger it was his fifth goal of the season and his fourth game in a row he has scored.

Montreal outshot Columbus 19-8 in the period and finally tied it up 1-1 at 15:08 when Alex Tanguay scored his team leading seventh goal of the season during a power play. Although not on the scoresheet, Georges Laraque kept the puck in the Jackets zone. Tanguay stuck around the net and was able to put the puck past Columbus goaltender Steve Mason.

Mason was making his second consecutive NHL start. In his first game, Wednesday in a 5-4 win over Edmonton, he made 22 saves in earning his first NHL victory. Against Montreal, he faced a team high 19 shots in the first period, stopping 34 overall, including attempts by Alex Tanguay and Andrei Kostitsyn in the shootout to seal his second victory and keep his record unblemished.

"It's definitely pretty exciting," he said. "Two wins in two games - I can't complain about that."

"I think we spent the first period just watching. It didn't feel like 19 shots, but it felt like we weren't checking very hard,” said Jackets head coach Ken Hitchcock. “We started to really play in the second and third period, they way we had to, to beat them."

In the third period, defenseman Patrice Brisebois ripped a slapshot from just inside the blue line that slid by Mason low glove side to put the Habs ahead 2-1. It was his first goal of the year and a power play goal.

Moments later, during 4-on-4, Rick Nash took the puck down the left side and spotted defenseman Marc Methot driving deep into in the zone. It was the third goal of the season for Methot and the second assist of the game for Nash as he set the table perfectly.

Hitchcock has been stressing to the defensemen to jump up into the play and becoming more aggressive. “(Methot) did a great job of jumping up into the play,” he said. “We've been able to do that all year, bounce back in the third period or in a reasonable amount of time to keep the wind in our sail. That's why we're getting points every night now."

Thirty-four seconds later Fedor Tyutin threw the puck across the slot and Fredrik Modin was there to slam it home low back door to put the Jackets ahead 3-2.

For Montreal, goaltender Jaroslav Halak (2-1-0) made the start as Carey Price (6-1-1) was resting and will play tomorrow in Toronto. Halak looked strong, stopping 15 of 16 in the first two periods, before giving up goals to Methot and Modin.

Montreal (8-1-1, 17 pts.) showed why it has such a good record starting out the season. With just 43 seconds remaining in regulation, Sergei Kostitsyn scored for Montreal to take the game to overtime.

The Blue Jackets had two minutes of powerplay during the overtime but could not get anything past Halak. Overall, they were 0 for 9 on the powerplay, but scored its two goals 4-on-4.

Hitchcock decided to go with Huselius first in the shootout. He zipped a wrister past Halak. Brassards was a slow motion kind of thing. He stick handled the puck for what seemed like an eternity before getting Halak to commit to his left while going to his back hand to slip it past and give the Jackets the win.

Columbus plays its second game in a row tomorrow night when they host the Calgary Flames who were in the arena watching the game.