The Columbus Blue Jackets are now 3-0 under interim head coach Claude Noel as they defeated the San Sharks 3-0 in Nationwide Arena on Wednesday night. Wednesday’s win gives the Blue Jackets their third win in a row; second against the leader of a division.

“I think we’re working, it is our work ethic,” Blue Jackets forward Derick Brassard said. “We are really good in the games and tonight we beat the best team in the league. It is good for our confidence.

San Jose came into the game as the No. 1 team in the Western Conference, but the Blue Jackets were able to shut down the Sharks’ two top players in Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley. The duo is among the most prolific point scorers in the NHL combining for a total of 140 points through 60 games.

Heatley was held shot-less the entire game and Thornton did not get his first shot until the final 30 seconds of the game. The line of Heatley, Thornton, and Patrick Marleau finished the game with a combined minus-8.

Defensemen Jan Hejda and Marc Methot were tasked to shutdown the Sharks’ top line. Those two played a marvelous 20 plus minutes of hockey against the Sharks.

“It didn’t matter who had shots for them, but I thought we played a hard game,” Noel said.

Blue Jackets’ goalie Steve Mason notched his second consecutive shutout stopping all 40 of the Sharks’ shots. Though Columbus was outshot 40-21, they made the best of their opportunities.

“I thought (Mason) was great,” Noel said. “I didn’t think he had to be great for the whole 60 minutes, but he was really good when he had to (be) and he made some marvelous saves. He’s one one of the reasons why we won the game.”

“It always helps when you have a guy like (Mason) playing on his game,” Jackets defenseman Marc Methot said. “He had some pretty big saves back there but playing against these guys, especially those top guys isn’t an easy assignment. I thought we handled it well. We limited a lot of their opportunities and (Mason) shut the door.”

The Blue Jackets got their eventual game-winner 13:18 into the first when forward Krisitan Huselius flipped a pass through the crease to captain Rick Nash to beat Sharks’ goalie Thomas Greiss on his stick side.

Columbus gained a 2-0 lead when forward Jakub Voracek got past Sharks’ defenseman Dan Boyle and had a breakaway chance go through the legs of Greiss. Voracek received a nice feed from Brassard through center ice. Antoine Vermette scored into an empty net to give the Blue Jackets 3-0 lead with 24 seconds left.

Noel, showing confidence in his entire team, rolled all four lines, even putting Jared Boll and Andrew Murray on the ice with two minutes left in the game.

“I really enjoyed the game,” Noel said. “The result was what we wanted. I would never look at is as us clicking out there. This game for me as going to tell me how intelligent our team was and I asked members of the staff to look for that.”

The Blue Jackets have two more games against division leaders before heading into the Winter Olympics break. They play the Vancouver Canucks on Friday followed by a Valentine’s Day match against the Chicago Blackhawks.