A Bizarre Road Point

There was quite a debate a few nights ago, when the Jackets came away with an OTL vs. Tampa Bay. Many were concerned that the Jackets seemed satisfied with the point, and that they did not display the requisite angst over the OTL.

Tonight, same result, but I submit a very different attitude.  Every one of the assembled 70+ Bluejackets fans was content with the road point, if not thrilled. Nobody was pleased with the way the CBJ played for the first 47 minutes of the game, nor with the officiating, which seemed hyper-technical agains the CBJ, while Nash was getting pummeled by the Blues.

Make no mistake, St. Louis is a desperate team, and played like it.  This was their next-to-last home game, and was an absolute must-win if they are to keep their playoff homes alive heading out on a 5 day road trip.  Their energy was fueled by an insane (and nasty) Blues crowd, who has embraced the stretch drive this team has put together.  The Blues swarmed the offensive zone, making you wonder if they had too many men on the ice.  The first goal was the result of a convention of 3 players in the crease.  Mason never had a chance.  The second was a bizarre, sweeping backhand in traffic that hit the far post and caromed in.  In between Vermette provided our only hopeful moment of the first two frames, taking a feed from Umberger on the power play and beating Chris Mason for a shorthanded tally.  

The third St. Louis goal epitomized what was ailing the Jackets during the first two frames.  The puck came toward the net, and was deflected by a body.  It sat in the crease -- a Blues player shot it -- saved.  Another Blues player found the puck and shot it -- saved.  Mason couldn't stop the third try. We couldn't put our sticks on the pucks, particularly in our own zone.  We lost every battle along the boards.  Only some fantastic saves by Mason kept us in the game.  The Blues and their fans smelled blood, but the Jackets refused to collapse.

Just as things looked like they might not turn around, Huselius followed a shot with a stuff past Mason's stick.  All of a sudden, despite being outplayed, the Jackets were in the game.  Just under two minutes later, Nash took things into his own hands.  Coming off the boards, he fought off a couple of defenders, cruised the middle, and fired a wrister past Mason.  Tie game!   Clearly unnerved, St. Louis took a timeout, and the crowd was silent.

The Jackets dominated possession for the balance of the game, holding St. Louis to 4 shots in the third.  Same for the OT.  The shootout was huge for the Blues, and the crowd was going nuts.  Huselius beat Chris Mason, but lost the handle moving it to his backhand.  Nash buried his, but Williams made one too many moves.  For St. Louis, Oshie and McDonald were stuffed by our Mason, but Boyes blasted a rocket high glove, and Perron copied him in the 4th round for the win.

No plus/minus tonight, as we have to be up at 5:30 am to catch our plane, and I am watching my alma mater, Stanford, put the finishing touches of a victory over OSU in the Women's NCCA Basketball Tournament round of 16.  Sorry, folks, but -- GO CARDINAL!!!

Here are my observations:

• All the credit in the world to St. Louis and its fans.  This was an unbelievably pumped up team and crowd, and the environment was electric. (For our part, I think we represented the Army of the Ohio pretty well -- our cheering generated boos from the crowd and some particularly nasty remarks from San Jose fans)
• Steve Mason kept us alive until we found our legs and a way to match the St. Louis intensity.  
• All credit to the CBJ for digging deep to take a road point under hostile conditions and with seemingly everything stacked against them.
• We need to get back to hitting instead of just skating near the offensive player in our zone.  Klesla was weak again in this regard.  We lost the hit battle, lost lots of battles on the boards, and just broke even in the faceoff circle.  Our younger players seem tentative, not wanting to make a mistake.
• On the positive side, we are 3-0-2 during the Dirty Dozen, 8 out of a possible 10 points, and that is the type of tenacity we need heading into the playoffs.
• I updated the spreadsheet, and will have more on playoff standings after tomorrow night's games.  However, we eliminated LA from passing us tonight (thanks, roadman for pointing out the tiebreaker on most wins!)  I am officially calling Dallas out of the race as well. Minnesota is on life support after losing to Calgary.  St. Louis has only 1 home game left, and Nashville has only 2 home games left.  It is a 4 horse race for 2 slots coming down the stretch.
• I fully expect that the Jackets (and the crowd) will demonstrate the same enthusiasm that the Blues fans did today.

More later today after we return to Columbus.  Go Jackets!

Missouri Musings

Getting ready to suit up and head out for pre-game festivities, and thought I would share some miscellaneous rambling, some hockey related, some not:

St. Louis Transit:  With the weather being less than optimal, we have been using the Metro Link system to get around St. Louis, and it has been fantastic.  Station right across from the hotel, and $7.50 gets you an all day pass that gets you virtually anywhere you want in St. Louis.  One semi-comical note are the drivers in the cars -- as you approach a station they announce the arrival, the bus lines you can connect to at the station, what other Metro lines can be accessed, etc.  This is done live, not via recording.  Only problem is that the intrepid drivers are obviously a tad bored by having done this every 30 seconds or so for God-knows-how-long, so most of them speak so quickly, softly and indistinctly, that you have difficulty figuring out what language is being spoken, let alone what is being said.  Sort of of like the old-time radio traffic reports that would come directly from the helicopter, blade noise and all.  

Non-Smoking?  Not so much . . . Maybe I notice this more as a former smoker, but it is a bit of a shock to the system to be in restaurants, etc. here and be exposed to smoking right next to you.  I watched the Miami upset of Denver in the NCAA Hockey tourney last night through a haze of smoke, and same for the pre-comedy show festivities (though the show itself was smoke-free).  This town is one of the few that can make Columbus look like a bastion of the healthy lifestyle!

Playoff Madness:  A good amount of buzz here in St. Louis over the Blues surge toward the playoffs. Chatting with a couple of the Scottrade Center folks this morning, it was clear that they were proud of the effort, and shared our enthusiasm for the Jackets effort.  Don't get me wrong, both squads will be out for blood tonight (and reports from Portzline indicate a very high energy level at the morning skates), but there is a healthy respect for the mutual level of effort that has been required to put the squads where they are.  The Blues have even more desperation, as they are still on the outside looking in, and tonight represents the next-to-last home game for them, so the challenge is stiff as they head out on the road.

Scoreboard Watching:  Here is the slate of games on tap tonight, and the probably rooting interest:

Los Angeles @ Nashville -- LA is done in the playoff race, so we want them to knock of the Predators.  Tough job with the Preds at home, but could be a battle of goaltenders.

Florida @ Dallas -- Panthers are another desperate club, and a win for them puts the final nail in the Stars' playoff hopes coffin.  

Minnesota @ Calgary -- Another very tough road test for the Wild, against a very motivated Calgary club, coming off of being shut out in consecutive games, and needing to defend their division lead over Vancouver.  Root for the Flames.

Big night in the chase.  Go Jackets!!!

Game Day!

37 degrees and raining in St. Louis as Game Day dawns. Snow moves in late tonight.  Put hot water bottles under that blue hair!  Playoff spreadsheet has been updated here, and now includes the Magic Numbers for each contender.

We are going to head across the street to the Scottrade Center to see if we can talk our way into the morning skate, and will let you know if we succeed.  Portzline thinks security is tightened after the idiotic threat to Mason.  I'll report back either way.  

Unlikely to have time for a formal Game Preview today, so I will leave that to LTL over at Light The Lamp, assuming he is back in time.  You can check my tweets on Twitter, which I will update frequently during the day and during the game itself.  Watch Fox Sports Ohio tonight for the broadcast and see if they give some air time to the Jacket Backers and R Bar contingents that are invading St. Louis.

Edmonton put a little damper in Anaheim's run last night, which means that we now have a 4 point lead over 7th, with a game in hand.  A little more exciting each day, and tonight will come down to which Mason can withstand the intensity that will be flowing from both teams.  St. Louis goes on a long road trip after tonight, so the key is to do exactly what we did vs. Calgary -- match the intensity and play Hitch Hockey!

Go Jackets!

Nothing Is Ever Easy . . .

As the 3rd period was beginning tonight, my thoughts were along the following lines:

"Gee, this is great. A 4 - 1 lead after playing two great periods of hockey, and no need to have the cardiologist on call, for a change. We always dominate the third period."

My profound apologies to the CBJ faithful for apparently jinxing the hell out of the team. But who could blame me?? We score something like 2 seconds into our first power play, we dominate both ends of the ice, make a great "time and score" goal on Malhotra's steal, give up a dumb one, but then roar back immediately with a gorgeous Backman to Malhotra to Nash (yes, I said Backman) play, followed up by a Murray goal. We are perfect in games where Murray scores, so who could worry??? Geeez . . .

As Hitch said after the game, we got casual with the puck, gave up the shortie, followed by a tough power play goal, then were forced to hang on. 13 - 3 against us in shots in the 3rd period. However, we still end up with the victory, the 2 points, and are 5 - 0 -1 in our last 6 games, 7 -3 -1 since the All Star break. We are taking advantage of the opportunities we get, albeit with perhaps a bit more drama than some of us would like.

For the +/- tonight, I am going to do this in reverse, and get the big, ugly minuses out of the way first.

---3rd Period -- We were guilty of looking at the scoreboard, and looking at our watches to figure out when we had to be on the plane to Toronto. We didn't pass the puck, we shoved it. We appeared to be cycling well, except we were in our own end and didn't have the puck. We all know that Hitch conveyed the message loud and clear, and we don't need to belabor it. However, for future reference, hockey games are 60 minutes long.

--Penalties -- The big key was to stay out of the box, and we did a nice job of that in the first period. However 5 penalties later, including another stupid too many men penalty that they scored on, we taxed our forwards on the PK too much.

Now for the positives:

++ Dominance -- Although shot totals were fairly close, I have not seen the Jackets so totally dominate an opponent on every square inch of the ice as they did for 2 periods. The lone St. Louis goal came while one of our defenders was being pinned to the ice below the goal line, and the puck caromed around a bit in the high slot. We were disciplined, maintained good puck control, forced them to dump and chase, and cashed 4 nice goals, including the highlight reel number with Backman, Nash and Malhotra.

++ Control -- A subcategory of dominance, perhaps, but we were so calm, calculating and proficient during the first two periods, it was a joy to watch. No sense of scrambling, we took our time with the puck, made good passes, and created space and time seemingly at will.

++ Hustle -- Everyone got back on defense, defensemen jumped up where warranted, we kept pucks alive and back checked threatened breakaways.

++ Players -- Top line was good, Peca was very solid, as was Boll. Voracek plays hard and well every game these days. Backman is a great suprise -- leading that rush resulting in the Nash goal was terrific. Commodore and Tyutin were good, as usual, and Methot showed well. Zippy (nickname for Russell) showed more decisiveness. Mason was solid, if unspectacular. Maybe start him tomorrow to let his folks see him in Toronto, then let Dubie come in for 2nd and 3rd??

We outworked the Blues for 2 periods, and got away with it . . .barely. My cardiologist is getting pissed . . . Probably a good lesson, and inexpensive enough. Two more big games coming up tomorrow and Saturday. Although we then go on the road for our last extended (3 game) trip, the pace of those 3 games is rather leisurely compared to what they have faced over the past two weeks. Compare our schedule to Minnesota, who inexplicably has had 4 days off for no apparent reason. They pay for it in March, however, when their schedule gets really brutal.

A good win, extending the points earned streak to 6. 11 out of 12 possible points is terrific. Well done, boy! Go Jackets.

Can You Say "Stay Out Of The Box"?

Been a busy, busy day today, so my Blues preview will be necessarily abbreviated.

Stay Out Of The Box -- Simple enough, right? St. Louis gets a huge percentage of their points from the power play, so we can't allow them to take advantage of that. Play smart!

Simplicity -- As Hitch would say -- North to South game, not East West. Let's not play Harlem Globetrotters hockey here. Traffic in front, shoot the puck. First person attempting a drop pass in the slot I will personally ship to Elmira.

60 Minutes of Hitch Hockey -- Let's jump on them early, check hard, get the puck deep, forecheck all over the ice, and bury our chances.

Top Line Dominance -- Let's get our top guys back on track with points across the line.

We are 0 - 2 against this team, and need to assert ourselves now. Last loss was Mason's last mono-ridden game, so we have a fresh goaltender tonight and things should be different. We are in a race, and need to play loose, fast and hard.

Go Jackets!!

Unfinished Business

Despite dominating large swaths of the game, the CBJ dropped another one to their new nemesis -- the St. Louis Blues. Don't know what it is about this team, but we have a lot of trouble with these guys, and objectively there is no reason for it.

Tonight's loss was all about not finishing, both on offense and in goal. We played a solid first period, scoring a power play goal on our first opportunity, then Mase drops a puck he always holds onto, and it is tied. Next, we dominate possession in the zone, get a lot of traffic in front, get the puck to the point, and Tyutin buries it -- textbook stuff. A few minutes later, a muffed assignment leave the net wide open, and again we are tied. We show discipline, good puck handling, no penalties, and we end the first period tied.

Second period we lost a bit of our edge, and the puck spent more time in our zone than we would like to see. Mase made a few nice saves on the power play. 1 second later, however, he just misses one. Our seats are on a line behind Mason and the shooter on that goal, and I could not believe he missed it. He was square, no traffic in front, just a whiff. We outshoot St. Louis 15 - 2 in the final period, but can't get one to go. With Mason pulled, we got the faceoff, maintained possession and got just what we wanted -- Huselius with the puck right in front, and he passes off to the right side, wide of the intended mark . . . A misplay by Williams up high results in an empty netter, and the rest is history,.

Along the way we had more "almost" goals than I can count -- some nice saves by Chris Mason, but at least 3 or 4 posts, including a shorthanded breakaway by Nash, and some wildly bouncing pucks that went the wrong way. A nice open ice hit by Hejda against Backes -- some measure of payback for his hit on Huselius back in St. Louis.

+/- for tonight:

+ Possession -- For large parts of the game we absolutely dominated puck possession in their zone. (But see the minus for finishing below)

+ Defense\PK -- For the most part, we played a sound defensive game, with one lapse that cost us a goal. Great kill of the 4 minute high sticking penalty. We minimized their PP chances and kept the #8 power play off the board.

+ Players -- Tyutin had a very strong game, as did Commodore and Russell. Methot showed a lot of energy, as did Modin. The Chimera, Williams, Voracek line needs to work together, but showed signs of being a strong combination. Umberger put himself in the right position and was aggressive all night.

--Finishing -- We have gotten in the habit of trying to make things look too pretty. Huselius needs to shoot that puck at the end. One too many passes has become our trademark. Take a page from Russell, Tyutin and Commodore -- fire it at the net and good things happen. We need a more consistent presence in front of the net. Mase needs to grab the puck and hold on. 2 of the 3 were softies tonight. He deserved a better fate, but he would want both of those back.

--Players -- Sorry, but our #1 line did not have it tongiht. A combined minus 8 on the night, and Huselius had zero shots. Sorry, but with his talent, he needs to put the puck on the net more.


No need to panic, as a win on Friday still keeps us on par with the 60% rule -- win 3 out of 5 from the break on in and we go to the playoffs. Mase is clearly not at 100%, so we need to be able to cover for him. Curtis Sandford??? We have a great chance on Friday to go into Pittsburgh and take advantage of a struggling Penguins team. After two loses, we should be plenty fired up.

Bottom line -- forget the style points--finish your chances. Go Jackets!

St. Louis Preview

The St. Louis Blues come to town tonight, fresh on the heels of a SO loss against Detroit, 4 - 3. Get used to the Blues, as this is the first of 5 meetings between now and the end of the season, with 3 of them being at home.

The Blues have been bitten hard by the injury bug this year, somethingt CBJ fans can relate to. Despite their position at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, they handed the Jackets a 5-2 loss at the Scottrade Center in the middle of our extended road trip. They are 5-3-2 in their last 10 games, and backup Chris Mason has pitched 2 shutouts in that stretch, including a recent 4 - 0 blanking of the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Jackets, 6-3-1 over their last 10, are busy erasing the memory of a 7 - 3 home loss to the Stars, a game where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. These are going to happen, and it probably came at a good time, as St. Louis will come in with an edgy, up tempo approach to try to catch us off guard. After the Dallas fiasco, Hitch will make sure that doesn't happen.

St. Louis is 18th in NHL in Goals per Game, while the CBJ are close behind in 21st. The differences come in defense and special teams. The Jackets are 10th in the league in Goals Against, while the Blues are near the bottom, in 26th.

The Blues rely on special teams to a large extent. Over 1/3 of their goals (50/141) have come on the PP, which ranks 8th in the league. The two squads have comparable penalty killing units, with St. Louis ranking 15th in the league and the Jackets 18th.

Boyes has carried the bulk of the offensive load this year, with 20 goals and 21 assists for 41 points. Tkachuk boasts 32 points, as does Berglund. Backes chips in and serves as the prime agitator. Chris Mason has been hot in goal of late, and has a GAA of 2.72 and .912 save percentage for the year. He was called in to replace Manny Legace in last night's game, after Legace gave up 3 goals on 8 shots in the 2nd period, and after the game called himself "the worst player in the NHL."

Mason is likely to go for them tonight, and Hitch has confirmed that our own Mason will be in the net as well. Klesla also likely to be back on the ice for us, paired with Russell. Both Tollefson and Backman will sit. Fortunately, the Chimera experiment at center is over. He returns to the wing opposite Voracek tonight, centered by Jason Williams. That line could really light it up! Alexandre Picard also cleared waivers and was assigned to Syracuse.

Keys For The Game:

Two Way Intensity - We need to get back to complete Hitch-Hockey, with the forwards getting back and closing the gaps in our own zone. Hit hard, pass precisely, and move the puck decisively out of the zone. In our end, put lots of pucks on net and cash in on our chances. No missed one timers!

Patience & Composure -- St. Louis will come out hard, despite it being the back end of a back-to-back, trying to disrupt us the way Dallas did. Backes will agitate and they will try to leverage the revenge factor for the Huselius hit in St. Louis to get us to lose our cool and take unnecessary penalties. We can't fall into that trap. There will be plenty of opportunities to deliver some good, clean, vicious hits to Backes tonight -- but keep the eye on the prize. Staying out of the box will deprive them of one of their key weapons.

Traffic In Front -- The last couple of games, our forwards have been staying away from the blue paint. The lone exception was Voracek, who got the only goal against Ottawa. We can get some pucks past the St. Louis goaltenders, but need more traffic in front, and the ability to get the stick on the rebounds.

Pick Up Mason -- Stevie has carried the team a lot this year, so let's return the favor tonight. Keep Tkachuk, Boyes & Co. on the perimeter, open up lanes for vision, and clear the puck from in front. Don't wait for the puck to come to you in our own zone!!!

Should be a chippy game, and I expect the boys will be loaded for bear, proving that the Dallas debacle was just a fluke. Big win ahead! Go Jackets!

Out Of Gas . . .

Remember that purring car I wrote about last night? Well, it ran out of gas tonight in a 5 - 2 loss to St. Louis. Zero even strength goals by the Blues. We were a step slow all night, and the Blues came out with high intensity (and a substantial number of cheap shots). That led to 10 Blues power plays, and they cashed in on 4 of them. Add a shorthanded goal, and voila -- 5 goals on special teams.

We were clearly fatigued, and were sloppy with the puck, particularly in our own zone. St. Louis moved the puck quickly on the power play, and we couldn't keep up. Legs were dead.

Here are the simple +/- for the night:

-- Discipline -- The one thing we could not do tonight was spend much time on the box. The one thing St. Louis has done well all year is the power play, and we handed it to them on a silver platter.

--Puck Control -- Our fatigue showed up in sloppiness, bad decisions and missed connections. As sharp as we were last night, we were bad tonight.

- Special Teams -- We scored one goal just as penalty expired, and gave up one just as PP started, so not quite as bad as numbers, but we needed to be on top of our game, and we weren't.

+ Individual Efforts -- Despite taking a few penalties, Commodore was a huge presence. Dorset played solid, for the most part. Peca was active, but missed some golden opportunities.

Disappointing, but the stars were aligned for this kind of thing. Unlike some prior games this year, we had the desire, but just had nothing left in the tank. No point in recriminations. We are still 3 - 1 on the trip, get a couple of days of rest, and will come out strong against Detroit on Tuesday night.

Go Jackets!!

What A Way To End 2008!

Let the record reflect that there were fewer than 30 minutes remaining in the 2008 calendar year when the Jackets wrapped up their 3rd consecutive shutout win -- a 2 - 0 decision over the Anaheim Ducks. The Orange County Register blogger who questioned the existence of the Bluejackets in today's Ducks' blog now most certainly knows the name of at least one Bluejacket -- Steve Mason. Mase was simply spectacular once again, stopping all 27 shots that came his way. Well there was that one errant shot that went in the net but was not counted, due to the whistle having sounded for coincidental minor penalties, plus an extra 2 minutes to the Ducks. He now owns the record for most consecutive scoreless minutes by a Bluejackets goalie -- at the age of 20. Oh yeah, he also leads the league in GAA, with a 1.68 or so, and is tied with Luongo for the lead with 5 shutouts. Another game where the two goalies were the first and second stars.

For some classic deadpan humor, you really needed to catch Hitchcock's comments after the game. Barely suppressing a smile, when asked to comment about Mason, he said something to the effect of "He was O.K. -- he was fine." About 5 seconds later, when asked who starts in Colorado, the answer was simple, direct and immediate -- "Mason." We are getting grand efforts by him when we have needed them most, when our offensive ranks are thinned.

Credit goes to the boys in front of Mason for playing gritty, hard nosed hockey night after night, and doing the little things necessary to win. MacDonald was parked in front when Commodore let his blast go, and had his stick in the right place. After just missing on a long distance pass to spring Huselius, Nash pursued the puck to the boards, gained possession, and fed Peca with a beautiful chance that he buried. Two third period goals that slay the Ducks -- a beautiful thing.

With Chimera poised to come off the IR soon, the offense will hopefully begin to pick up. Since I could not watch the first two periods of the game tonight, i can't give out my usual +/- rankings, but suffice it to say that it certainly looked to be another victory chalked up to superior effort.

Now a well deserved rest to enjoy the New Year, then time to tackle a back-to-back at Colorado and St. Louis. Normally a graveyard for Jackets teams in the past, Colorado is hurt by injuries and lost to Phoenix tonight. St. Louis has also been hampered by injuries in falling to the bottom of the Western Conference standings. No matter, we need to put our feet firmly on their throats and keep up this relentless effort.

Possibilities abound folks -- stay tuned!!!! Go Jackets!!!