Jackets woes continue with 6-3 loss to Toronto (12/03/09)
by J. Justin Boggs, Columbus Wired, photos by Joel Torres

The Columbus Blue Jackets were hoping returning home to play the second worst team in the NHL would reenergize their season. They found in Thursday’s 6-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs a rude surprise early.

Defensive turnovers killed the Blue Jackets. Columbus would outshoot Toronto 36-25 but the Maple Leafs made the best of their opportunities.

“We have too many players who are too big of minuses,” Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We’re trying to force things and it’s ending up in our net.”

The Maple Leafs, who have only had the first lead in a game five times in their first 26 games got off to a fast start against the Blue Jackets and never looked back. Leafs’ forward Phil Kessel scored his first of two goals just 4:32 into the game on a scrum in front of the net that Blue Jackets defenseman Mike Commodore failed to clear.

Lee Stempniak put the visitors up two at 11:10 of the first after he intercepted a pass from Columbus defenseman Fedor Tyutin and scored on a backhander.  

“We’re just going through a stretch where we turn the puck over, we make a mistake and it is a great opportunity to lose a goal,” Commodore said. “We have to limit those.”

“This is a team we knew is dangerous offensively,” Blue Jackets forward R.J. Umberger said. “You know they have the most shots in the league, and they have been playing well and for the most part we had our chances.”

Columbus tried to climb back into the game in the first six minutes of the second period outshooting Toronto 8-0 in that span, successfully killing off a Toronto power-play, and capitalizing on the Blue Jackets’ own power play when Kristian Huselius’s shot went top shelf on Maple Leafs’ goalie Joey MacDonald.

The Blue Jackets got knocked off their climb.

Jason Blake scored 1:17 after Huselius to put Toronto up 3-1 on another turnover by the Columbus defense.

“We make it 2-1 and we’re really coming on, and we knew Toronto was going to give us the odd man rushes,” Hitchcock said. “(Toronto is) a hybrid team and they play on the move. We knew we were going to get the chances’ we just couldn’t give them chances. They’re very good off the rush. When you at five of the six goals, they were all scored with us having the puck on our side of the red line.”

The Maple Leafs added goals by Kessel and Nikolai Kulemin in a second period that saw the Blue Jackets outshoot the Maple Leafs 17-7. Despite the shot totals, Toronto held a 5-1 lead through two periods as many of the 13,825 Blue Jackets’ fans on hand made their way to the parking lots early.

Toronto went up 6-1 when Blake scored his second. Columbus finished the game strong with goals by Jason Chimera and Jan Hejda.

Some of Columbus’ best opportunities came while shorthanded. The Maple Leafs went zero-for-three on the man advantage and only notching one shot on goal. The Blue Jackets had six shots while a man down.

“We had six two-on-ones shorthanded today,” Hitchcock said. “Six in one hockey game, that usually a season (amount of two-on-ones) and we had them in one hockey game. If we would have scored on all of our two-on-ones, I don’t know what the score would have been today.”

With the loss, Columbus drops to ninth in the Western Conference; on the outside looking in for a possible playoff spot down the road. The Blue Jackets have just one win in their last eight games. The team has come a long way from a month ago when they were battling for the top spot in the Central Division.

“Mistakes are ending up in our net,” Commodore said. “Tonight we had pucks bouncing off skates and onto guys’ sticks for tap in goals. Some bad luck there, too. That happens but it is just that mistakes are ending up in our net. When that is happening, we have to try to ride it out and limit the mistakes and we’re just not doing that.”

MacDonald was solid stopping 33-of-36. Columbus starting goalie Steve Mason allowed four goals on 14 shots against. He was pulled after Kessel’s second goal and backup Mathieu Garon stopped nine-of-11.

Columbus’ best line was their third line of Mike Blunden, Jason Chimera, and Samuel Pahlsson. All three players were a +1 on the ice. Pahlsson and Chimera also received a point each. On the other hand, Columbus’ top line of Huselius, Antoine Vermette, and Rick Nash went a combined -8.