Voted Off The Island

The boys put together a very nice, solid effort tonight in their 3 - 1 victory over the Islanders. But for an unfortunate bounce of the puck, Mason could have had his 3rd shutout of the season. As Hitch said in the Dispatch this morning, the Islanders have a diffcult style to play against, and they did not disappoint in that regard. Despite the choruses of "Old McDonald" emanating from Section 108, MacDonald had a solid game for the Islanders, and was really the primary reason they were in the game at all.

Here are my plus/minus views for this one:

First the plusses:

Defense -- 3 solid periods of not giving the Islanders a lot of good looks, which is tough, given their style. Good communication and support, and great goaltending when we did have a lapse.

Special Teams -- Penalty kill was perfect and we got a power play goal. Yeah, we gave up a shortie, but that was a bad bounce, followed by a great effort. Have to mention a nice decrease in the stupid minor penalties, which keeps the PK team fresher. Also need to note 1 bizarre call and 1 borderline call. The borderline was the Umberger goaltender interference call that negated a goal for us. From my angle behind the goal, it looked like he was pushed into MacDonald, and the referee right there did not wave off the goal. The bizarre one was the Voracek diving penalty. A cross check to the head, and they call diving???? Please . . .

Possession -- Some beautiful work with the puck in the offensive zone, bringing the fans to their feet several times.

Goaltending -- Mason. 'Nuff said. (Check out the CBJ Vision tribute to him as Rookie of the Month in the CBJ Vision bar to the right)

Individual Efforts -- Tyutin, Commodore, Russell & Methot were magnificent all night. Hejda was good most of the time, but made some bad decisions and got caught more than once. Chimera's goal was a thing of beauty, and Voracek looks very strong. Malhotra came back with a strong effort, and Peca was more visible. Murray got a goal and spent a lot of time getting the hell beat out of him in front of the net. Even Backman looked better, which was a matter of concern coming in, due to the pressure NYI uses, and Backman has not been nifty with the puck. Great move on his breakaway, just couldn't finish.

Now the few minuses:

Finishing -- To our credit, after a couple of minutes of feeling out the opposition, we dominated a long stretch of the first period, but could not finish our chances. Ironic metaphor at the end when we had an empty net and hit two posts . . .

Clearing -- While I understand that the tendency against the Islanders can be to rush the passes, that is playing into their hands. We had too many sloppy clearing attempts, which created the few opportunities that the Islanders had, and negated our transition game.

Hitting -- While it may have been in our best interest to keep ourselves free of physical entaglements that could lead to odd man rushes elsewhere, we were badly outhit tonight. Again, more of a style thing, but something to keep an eye on.

While nobody will confuse the Islanders with the Sharks this year, they nonetheless play a style that has historically given the Jackets fits. We handled it with "competitive composure" tonight, and did not let our inability to finish or the late shorthanded goal against us in the 2nd get under our skin. We had a strong third period, and did what we had to to finish the deal. Well done!!

Let's take this show on the road and beat the Blackhawks! Go Jackets!

Has to be . . . A Shot From the Point!

Hitchcock's latest offensive experiment is paying off! What? No, no -- not the Wilson at wing experiment. The "Get The Puck To Commodore" experiment!!! 7 shots on goal, including a beauty from 50 feet to tie the game in the 3rd (aided by a nifty Umberger screen), just when fans thought another great effort was going to go to waste.

This was a total team effort -- stifling defense, solid goaltending, generally heady play. Some highlights, and a few "Needs Improvement" notes:

Defensive Coverage -- we were strong throughout our own zone for most of the night, played a good neutral zone game, for the most part, and had a persistent forecheck. Commodore was huge, Russell, Hejda and Tyutin all played well. Wingers did a good job of coming back and assisting. Erat's goal was a perfect shot -- just inside the far post in the upper corner, going at full speed. Nothing to be done there.

Special Teams -- Yes, you are reading right -- special teams. Perfect on the penalty kill, including a magnificent kill of a 1:07 5 vs. 3 advantage. Interesting choice of Modin, Commodore and Hejda to defend that at the outset. Power play will not show any tallies, but Commodore's goal, 1 sec after expiration, is almost as good as, and we showed some real flashes of great puck movement and greater willingness to shoot.

Goaltending -- Mason was stellar -- again. Erat's goal was a perfect shot to the high corner far post at full speed. No stopping it, period. Showed great presence when traffic was around, but the defense also helped by giving him some good lanes. He also handled the puck well outside the crease.

Possession -- Though we sometimes struggled to gain possession, once we had it, we kept it moving and in possession in the offensive zone for extended periods of time. We missed a few drop passes where we thought someone was going to be there, but overall showed much improved communication.

Kudos To: Nash (monster all night, great forehand to backhand move in the SO), Voracek (much more energy, very strong on the puck, nice fake to the post then 5 hole backhand in the SO), Russell (another assist and generally strong play), Chimera (not much on the shooting side, but in lots of plays and made a lot happen).

A few nagging items on the negative side:

Faceoffs -- OMG, we were awful in the circle!!! We are lucky we got away with it. Winning faceoffs has been Malhotra's one saving grace of late, and if he can't do that, well . . . .

Defensive Puck Control -- We have trouble gaining control behind our own net. Way too many casual passes along the boards in our own zone or just at the blue line. We need crispness from our defensemen on these passes

Offensive About Face -- Nashville is tough this way, but we spend too much time in the offensive zone with our backs toward the middle of the ice, trapped along the boards. Back to Dave King hockey at times. Difference is that our skill players are now able to get and keep possession. Let's try getting more stuff to the middle and firing more on net. Still a woeful shooting percentage. . .

Nitpicking items aside, this is one to be enjoyed. A lot of pressure on the boys tonight, as many were calling this a "must win", at least from the emotional standpoint. They stood toe to toe with Darth Vader and knocked his light saber off. Well done!!!

Next up, an Islanders team that escaped with an OT win over us at home, after we had a sterling 3 goal comeback in the 3rd. They might be a tad on the irritable side -- Pittsburgh 9, NYI 2 tonight. Ouch!

Go Jackets!

Nashville Preview and Statistical Madness

Predatory Visit -- Nashville comes to town, which customarily has the local scribes and other pundits wailing and beating their breasts about the imminent loss. Never more so than now, on the heels of a shutout West Coast trip. Sure history supports their angst, but consider that half of the CBJ roster has no experience, background or understanding of past failures with Nashville, and frankly -- they don't care! Mason, Tyutin, Backman, Methot, Brassard, Voracek, Torres, Commodore, Huselius, Umberger are strangers to the fray, and Commodore made his feelings pretty well known earlier. Keys for tonight:
Short memory -- forget the road trip, forget the past. Play for tonight.
Stand them up -- the Preds get most of their offense from the back line. If we collapse, we create opportunities for them to jump in deep. Stand them up at the blue line and create opportunities for turnovers -- that keeps the D at bay.
Bury the chances-- no more excuses, take the time to tickle the twine when we have the chance. (See discussion below)

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics (Part I) -- With the recent road problems, there has been a lot of noise about how we are done, or will be by (Xmas, New Years - -pick one), and how the 3 point game makes it impossible to catch up. Based upon performances to date, here is how the Western Conference would shape up at the end of the season:

1. San Jose 140 pts
2. Detroit 128 pts
3. Chicago 104 pts
4. Vancouver 99 pts
5. Anaheim 99 pts
6. Minnesota 98 pts
7. Calgary 96 pts
8. Edmonton 88 pts
9. Nashville 88 pts
10. Colorado 85 pts
11. St. Louis 82 pts
12. Phoenix 82 pts
13. L.A. 79 pts
14. Columbus 76 pts
15. Dallas 73 pts

So, if we say that 90 points ends up as the magic number for the playoffs in the West, that means 65 points in 55 games. 27 -17-11. Or 30 - 20 - 5. Those are not unrealistic numbers for a young team that should be playing better as time goes on. Add a little help from Howson, some tightened defense, and it is very doable. Fans in Columbus never seem to account for a hot streak, which is how teams build a points advantage. We will have that hot streak, hopefully more than one, and simply need to minimize the down streaks, which everyone will have.

Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics (Part II) -- Target Practice -- Lots being said about burying chances, but what does that really mean? Consider this: through 27 games, the CBJ has outshot the opposition 805 to 736, but has been outscored 86 to 76. Our shooting percentage is a paltry .0944, while the opposition is shooting .1168. Tiny difference? Not so much. If we just shot the same percentage as our opponents, we would have 18 more goals, for a total of 94. Spread those across the schedule and see what that would do for our record. How about shooting practice, Hitch??

Go Jackets!!!

Effort There, Execution Not So Much

The 5 - 3 loss to Anaheim tonight is a tough one to characterize. Lots of effort, particularly out of the gate when Anaheim had lots of jump after 3 days rest and showed lots of spark. We did a good job of keeping up the frenetic pace and played them to a standoff.

Our downfall tonight consisted of the following, IMHO:

Sloppiness In Our Own Zone -- We got caught tonight watching the puck too much and reacting, rather than anticipating and moving. 4 guys turned toward the goal watching for a rebound, and nobody watching Getzlaf or (fill in the blank) in the slot or the crease.

Inconsistent On The Entries --We had long stretches where we had difficulty creating any momentum coming out of our own zone. This was due in part to the scrambling in the defensive end, but also simply due to inattention and sloppiness.

Goaltending -- I might take some heat on this one, but I gotta call 'em as I see 'em. While Pazzy made some really nice saves tonight, he just didn't make the huge save when he needed to . Most importantly, however, he created some of his own trouble by giving up rebounds right in the crease. The Pazzy of last year would either a)not give up the rebounds or b) steer them to the corners.

Give the Ducks their due -- they were rested, played with precision and intensity at both ends of the ice, and had some super saves from Giguere.

Some positives for us:

Power Play/PK -- Incremental improvement here. Lots of movement and finally a PP goal. Not very good yet, as shown by the zilch scored during the double minor, but at least we got some prime shots off. PK was solid all night

Faceoffs and Hits -- Much better in both of these categories. Stayed with a very physical team in hits, and won their share of faceoffs.

Individual Contributors-- Tyutin continued his solid play, and Brassard showed more life. Commodore has been a rock, and jumped up well. Honorable mention to Russell and Wilson, both of whom showed flashes of why they are there. Modin was a contributor again. Nash had a monumental physical effort, but may have tried to do too much. Ditto Huselius.

Perseverance -- It would have been easy to lay down in the third, but the CBJ once again refused, and made a game of it at the end. No moral victories here, but good to see nonetheless.

Here's Thinking of You -- OKT being slingshotted to the ice and that ghastly vacant stare, accompanied by the bleeding, was one of the scariest moments I have ever seen on the ice. More about fighting today in another installment, but here's hoping all is well with Tolly. Good to see him get off under his own power, sort of. I know it was a fight, but that type of sling down should be penalized.

Bottom Line -- A bad road trip, but not fatal. The team learned some things about itself, some good some bad. I suspect that Howson has also just about reached the point where he understands what we need, and will likely act sooner than later, particularly if Tollefson is out for any lenght of time.

We have 2/3 of the season left, have 3.5 days to practice and continue the maturation process, and fine tune some things on both ends of the ice. I'd like to see Hitch go back to some line combinations that have worked, and stick with them for a bit. Veterans are quick to adjust, but I think we are seeing the strain on the younger players from the line shifting, and the resultant impact to scoring. The first third of the season has been a learning experience. Now the playing needs to start in earnest. Nashville will be a great opponent to start with.

Go Jackets!!

Need To Bag Our Limit Of Ducks Tonight

With the end of the current road trip coming tonight in Anaheim, we need a strong effort to make this only an unsatisfactory trip, as opposed to an awful one. An unrewarded strog effort in San Jose was followed by a realy snoozer in LA. The only solace from that one is that, disregarding empty netter, it was only a 2 -0 loss. In years past, that would have been 5 - 0 at least.

So what needs to happen to garner two points tonight? Several things:

Ferocity -- After what I am sure was a lively chat with Coach Hitch after last night's debacle, nothing short of ferocity will fit the bill tonight. Anaheim is coming off of three days of rest, and will either be energized or a bit stale. Either way, no excuses tonight for any lack of energy.

Decisiveness -- Don't be afraid to make a play. Shoot, pass, jump up, but do it decisively and do it NOW, particularly on the power play. We have gotten good enough where people are supporting for defensemen that jump up and players that take risks. Play within the system, but let the puck fly. We have a higher GPG average than Anaheim -- let's extend it.

Shutdown In Net -- Mason has two consecutive losses, but has gotten no support. Leclaire needs to tape up his ego, stop whining, and start caring. Focus, energy. His energy can be contagious, so let's see plenty of it tonight.

Crispness -- Maybe a subset of decisiveness, but let's be sharp with the passes, know where everybody is and play like we know we are capably of playing.

Don't Panic -- Contrary to the teachings of the 'Patch crew, now is not the time to panic. A win tonight and we are at .500, with the crappiest power play in hockey. That ain't bad. 2/3 of the season remains. Sure, we are only a few points out of last, but we are also only a few points out of 5th. This is going to be a dogfight to the end, and count on Howson to make some more resources available to us in short order. Every team is going to go through some bad patches, and if we can hold ours down to a couple of games at a time, we will be ahead of the pack on that score. Trust your instincts boys, and think of how delicious a slowly roasted duck can be!!!

Go Jackets!!

Gobble, Gobble

Well, the CBJ gave us a turkey a week late. I suppose they were due for a bad game, but this one had no redeeming social value. My takeaways from the game:

What Jump?? First 10 minutes of the game were played in slow motion. We just came off a big effort against the best team in hockey, and could have/should have blown the fenders off these guys early. Nope. A little too much of the LA mellowness got to the boys apparently. Hitchcock gave them an optional skate yesterday. I'm beginning to think that "optional" should be removed from the CBJ vocabulary for awhile.

Waiting for . . . what exactly?? Much of our problem tonight was that we waited too long before making a play, whether that was taking a shot, passing, whatever. We had a classic 3 on 1, and Umberger tries to make the almost impossible pass across to Huselius, rather than taking the shot himself and letting Nash and Huselius clean up the rebound, or dropping a pass to Nash coming into the high slot. With the gambling defense that LA plays up high, indecisiveness is punished severely.

Indifferent Defense Nothing so glaring that you could point your finger and say AHA! THAT cost us the game. Just overall blah, no edge to the defense, no opportunities created from the back end.

Give credit to LA for playing stifling defense, and LaBarbera for making some good saves, but we are a better team than this. Mason deserved a better fate, screened on one goal, deflected on the other.

On the bright side, this is the first time the Jackets have been shut out this year, which is an improvement over past years. Man, I can dig down deep to find a silver lining, eh?

Finally, what was up with the ice tonight? I haven't seen that many people fall down since my wedding reception. And that was many moons ago . . .

No time to stew over this one. Bring both barrels loaded for Duck hunting tomorrow! Quack!

L.A. Preview

Assuming that the Jackets can get to the Arena through L.A. traffic, here are some things to watch for:

Attitude -- CBJ attitude needs to be the same as in SJ -- come out hard, put lots of pucks on net, and don't give LA a chance to breathe. LaBarbera will likely start, as he came in and allowed only one goal in 2 periods of work against Edmonton. Can't afford any sort of emotional hangover from one that got away.
Continuous Effort--LA was down 3 - 0 in the first period to Edmonton, but came back to tie it at 4 - 4. We need 60 minutes of hockey. More brutally stated, we need to put our feet on their collective throats and keep them there.
Youth Will Be Served -- The Kings have some young players to showcase, and play an uptempo game. This can play into the hands of the Goat line. Look for Russell and Novotny (maybe Wilson too???) to be facilitators of up tempo play.
Stay Steady In Goal -- Mason needs to be large, both literally and figuratively. Follow the Hitchcock recipe for starting scoring from the back end.
People To Watch -- For LA, watch Tom Preissing, who was a healthy scratch for them last game, and has been mentioned in trade rumors with the CBJ. On our side, if Wilson plays, let's see how this noble experiment works. Watch Tyutin and Russell on the PP -- they want to demonstrate that they are the answer to our woes.

Calling anything a "must win" at this point in the season is far fetched, but we need to show that we can win the games we should, and need to establish some road momentum. 4 Points on this trip, on top of a solid SJ effort, would be outstanding.

If you aren't all still in bed after staying up to watch this one, remember the JacketBackers game watching party tomorrow at the Garage Bar on Vine Street! Go Jackets!!!!!1