Jackets experience déjà vu once again
By Justin Boggs, Columbus Wired
 

On March 12, the Columbus Blue Jackets went into the final minutes of what they thought was going to be a typical blowout victory against a flat Pittsburgh Penguins as Columbus held a 3-0 lead going into the final 12 minutes of the game. In the middle of the third period, the eventual Stanley Cup Champions showed up and would score three goals in a four minute span to force a shootout.

Luckily for Columbus, goaltender Steve Mason made three crucial saves again the Penguins in March’s game; one of them was against all-star forward Sidney Crosby. In Friday night’s 4-3 shootout loss to Pittsburgh, Mason’s Blue Jackets could not get the same luck for a second time. Pittsburgh scored twice in the final three minutes of regulation with goals from Ruslan Fedotenko and Alex Goligoski.

“It was identical,” Crosby said. “It felt identical. I felt in the third, we kept generating chances after chances. I think we all felt confident we could get ourselves back in it with the way we were playing and the momentum we had. Sure enough, it was almost identical. (Last year’s game) went through our minds.”

Crosby got the game-winning shootout goal through the five hole of Mason that trickled over the goal line. It was not that one goal by itself, however, that led to Columbus’ defeat. It was not closing the door late in the third period which lead to the defeat of the Blue Jackets.

“That is what I felt (that Columbus was playing on their heels),” Crosby said. “They were really tough and stingy defensively. They don’t give you a lot. They probably felt like they sat back a little bit and combine that with us getting more pucks deep and getting a little more pressure on them. That combination gave us more chances.”

“We got to keep going with what we were doing the whole game,” Blue Jackets forward Antoine Vermette said. “We were successful.”

In the matchup in March, the Blue Jackets outshot the Penguins 24-19 in the first two periods. They would end up getting outshot 41-28 for the match. In Friday’s game, Columbus outshot the Penguins 23-17 in the first two periods. Pittsburgh outshot Columbus 12-6 in the third period.

“We’re learning how to win and this is a hard lesson,” Blue Jackets head coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We took our foot off the gas in the third period. We could have shut the game down by staying aggressive and staying on top of them. We started to play the clock far too early.”

Penalty kill unit is back on track 

For once, the Columbus Blue Jackets penalty kill had a successful night. They killed off all five Penguins’ power plays, none as big as one Pittsburgh had in the final seconds of overtime after Jakub Voracek committed a hook.

Going into Friday’s game, Columbus had only killed off nine of their previous 19 penalties.

“That was a positive, constructive step forward on the penalty kill,” Vermette said. “We knew what we are capable of and we can be successful. It is a matter of sticking to the plan and doing the right thing. Tonight, we were better that way and we just have to keep going the same direction in the next game with the penalty killing.”

Pittsburgh was only able to generate four power-play shots. Columbus’ third goal came on a busted clear that turned into a two-on-one opportunity that landed on the stick of Samuel Pahlsson who was just coming out of the box. Pahlsson would assist Dorsett on his goal following the end of Columbus’ penalty late in the second period.

“(The penalty kill units) were very good tonight,” Hitchcock said. “They were really competitive and really good. There is a lot of good things that we did but you have to get games shutdown.”