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Columbus Blue Jackets (Official Thread)

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CBJ is the first team to beat the Red Wings after the Red Wings were leading after the 2nd period (32-0-1). Pascal LeClaire had 40 SAVES and Vyborny, Klesla, and Nash each had 1G, 1A on the night. Overall, a great come-from-behind victory after being down by 3 in the 2nd AT Detroit.
 
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Dispatch

3/26/06

BLUE JACKETS 5 | RED WINGS 4

Jackets roar back in third, edge Wings

Leclaire blanks Detroit in overtime, shootout

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

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DETROIT — Blue Jackets lore, such as it is, has held one victory above all others: the 5-4 overtime victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Feb. 28, 2004, in Nationwide Arena. Last night, it was eclipsed.
On the road in Joe Louis Arena, against the team with the best record in the league, the Blue Jackets emerged from a slumber, scored four goals in the third period and beat the Detroit Red Wings in a shootout. Final score: 5-4.
This season, the Blue Jackets have points in eight games in which they trailed after two periods. They’ve posted the best overtime record (13-1-2) in the league. They’re 8-2 in shootouts. But there isn’t a team of tarot card readers, psychics or Doug MacLean clones that could have foreseen what happened last night.
"It was something," Blue Jackets coach Gerard Gallant said. "It has to rank right up there. Especially in this building. They’re a great team."
Through two periods, the Red Wings undressed the Blue Jackets with surgical precision Ageless Steve Yzerman scored a goal and set up another one. Johan Franzen and Robert Lang each had a goal. The goaltender, Chris Osgood, was on his way to a no-sweat shutout.
The Red Wings outshot the Blue Jackets 18-4 in the second period. A sellout crowd of 20,006 kicked back, sipped soft drinks and pondered the President’s Trophy and first-round playoff opponents. Ho-hum, another Wings victory — their 10 th in 12 games, once they finished mopping the ice with the Blue Jackets.
The opponents, too, fell into the assumed roll. The Jackets had played their toughest game of the season and gritted out a one-goal victory over the Calgary Flames the night before. They had to be tired. They appeared mesmerized by the Wings. Entranced.
At the second intermission, the Blue Jackets were trailing 3-0 — and it would have been worse if not for goaltender Pascal Leclaire. Gallant assembled his charges and had words with them, words with hard consonants. He brought up the Calgary game.
"I just told them we played too well (Friday night) to go down without a fight," Gallant said. "We wanted to salvage something in the third period, play hard, win the period. Something."
At 7:08 of the third period, Rostislav Klesla put a slap shot from the right point under the arm of Osgood. Rick Nash applied the bother on the doorstep. The Blue Jackets were unleashed.
"We had nothing to lose, so we just started skating, wanting the puck, going to the net," Klesla said. "(The Wings) played like they do all the time, because they know they’re good and we were watching them. We brought it to them in the third period and they were watching us."
Klesla threw in a shot from the left wall that David Vyborny tipped past Osgood. Nash scored on a partial breakaway, very nice. Manny Malhotra scored on a hack-hack-hack at the doorstep. There it was: The Blue Jackets scored four goals in a span of 7:37 to take a 4-3 lead with just over five minutes left. The fans booed Osgood.
The Jackets couldn’t quite hold on to win in regulation, as Pavel Datsyuk took advantage of a bad line change and scored on a wicked wrist shot with 1:50 remaining. On to overtime. Both teams had chances — the best chance being the stab of Jackets defenseman Ron Hainsey in the first minute.
Here was the shootout: Blue Jackets sniper Jaroslav Balastik, the first shooter, beat Osgood inside the left post. Nobody else found the back of the net. Leclaire put a pad on a reachback by Datsyuk, poke-checked Jason Williams and, to win the game, made a left-pad save on Henrik Zetterberg. That’s the way to nail down a memorable game, and the greatest comeback victory in the short history of the Blue Jackets franchise.
"Pretty cool," Leclaire said, "the way we did it." [email protected]
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Unbelievable. I turned it off after the late goal in the first period and just checked in periodically.

Would have been sweeter to win it in regulation, but a helluva win, none the less.
 
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Dispatch

3/27/06

Jackets experience finest hour

First was a hard-fought win over Flames, then came a stunning comeback in Detroit

Monday, March 27, 2006

Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

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</IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=credit width=200>JERRY S . MENDOZA | ASSOCIATED PRESS </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>Rick Nash celebrates beating Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood on Saturday, the third of four straight Jackets goals in the third period. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>


The Blue Jackets were given yesterday off, and it was one of those rare occasions when they deserved it. They put aside a fivegame losing streak and showed guts in a 3-2 victory over the Calgary Flames on Friday night in Nationwide Arena. One night later, they came back from a threegoal deficit and posted an improbable 5-4 shootout victory over the Detroit Red Wings in Joe Louis Arena. It was, inarguably, the finest 48 hours in team history.
The Detroit game was particularly notable, if only for its statistical improbability. The Red Wings, now with a league-best 103 points, were 30-0-1 when they carried a lead into the third period. They were 9-1-1 this March, a month they love — they’ve played .700 hockey in March the past 10 seasons. And here they were at home, with a three-goal lead after 40 minutes, playing a team they normally beat by an average score of 4-2 in The Joe.
"We talked (in the second intermission) about the Calgary game," Blue Jackets coach Gerard Gallant said. "We talked about initiating the play instead of sitting back and watching Detroit go tick-tacktoe."
Rostislav Klesla’s slap shot from the right point, which appeared to be tipped past Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood, gave the Blue Jackets their first goal at 7:08 of the third period. It broke a Red Wings shutout streak of 157 minutes, 7 seconds — in 2½ games — and it opened the floodgates.
"The first goal was huge," Gallant said. "I don’t know if they (Jackets players) thought they were going to come back and win the game, but I knew (after the first goal) they were going to compete and try to get something out of that period."
The Jackets scored three more in the next 7:37. With five minutes remaining in regulation, David Vyborny, Rick Nash and Klesla each had a goal and an assist, Ron Hainsey had two assists and the Jackets led 4-3.
The improbable comeback completely unsettled the sellout crowd of 20,006. For two periods, the folks in the Stevie Y jerseys and Kirk Maltby sweat shirts had been enjoying an execution and booing Blue Jackets center Sergei Fedorov — a star on three Red Wings Stanley Cup teams — every time he touched the puck. In the third period, the cheer turned to dumbfound, but the ridicule remained. The fans targeted Osgood, one of their favorite whipping boys, and mocked him when he managed to make a save between Jackets goals.
"They call this Hockeytown," Vyborny said, "but I don’t know about the fans. The (mock) clapping for Osgood, that wasn’t right."
The Blue Jackets were not fazed when Pavel Datsyuk screamed up ice — he had room because a Jackets defenseman had broken a stick — and put a gnarly wrist shot past Pascal Leclaire. Datsyuk’s goal tied the score at 4 with 1:50 left, but the Jackets looked like they had produced a magic point, Leclaire already had 39 saves and the Jackets love overtime.
Both teams had chances during the five minutes of four-on-four overtime. Neither scored, and the game came down to a shootout. The Jackets have lost just two shootouts this season, one to the Wings, who throw three of the trickiest players in the league out there for penalty shots — Datsyuk, Jason Williams and Henrik Zetterberg.
"Pascal came to the bench and I think Marc Denis talked to him," Gallant said. "He said, ‘Wait them out because they make great moves and they want you to make the first move.’ . . . To stop all of those guys is a feat in itself."
Denis, the backup this night, joked that he was just trying to keep Gallant away from the goaltender before the shootout.
"I wanted Gerard to concentrate on the shooters," Denis said with a smile.
The first shooter was Jackets winger Jaroslav Balastik, whose wrister from the hash marks is virtually automatic. He put the shot past Osgood, inside the left post. He’s now 6 of 8 in shootouts, with two winning goals.
Rick Nash missed the net and Vyborny was thwarted by Osgood. No matter. Leclaire made saves on all three Red Wings shooters and, after a pad save on Zetterberg, the Blue Jackets had a 5-4 win.
"To win in Detroit, the best team in the league, no matter how it was done — it’s right up there," Gallant said. "I hope it carries over for our team."
[email protected]
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Dispatch

3/28/06

Balastik is Jackets’ top gun in shootouts

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Aaron Portzline
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

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On a Blue Jackets team with highly skilled players such as Rick Nash, Nikolai Zherdev, Sergei Fedorov and David Vyborny, the first player on coach Gerard Gallant’s shootout list is unheralded winger Jaroslav Balastik, a rookie from the Czech Republic.
"I’ll go to him (first) every time," Gallant said recently. "Why not get one on the board early?"
Call him Jaroslav Automatik.
Balastik had the shootout winner in Saturday’s momentous 5-4 win over the Detroit Red Wings in Joe Louis Arena.
It was Balastik’s third shootout winner and the fourth time overall he’s won a game for the Blue Jackets, who play host to the San Jose Sharks tonight in Nationwide Arena.
"It makes me feel very good, of course," Balastik said, "like I’m part of the team."
Balastik is 6 of 8 (75 percent) on shootout attempts, the second-best rate in the NHL. Only Dallas’ Jussi Jokinen (9 of 11, 81.8 percent) has a higher percentage with at least eight attempts.
"(Balastik) is personally responsible for six or seven or eight points (in the standings) for us," Blue Jackets president and general manager Doug MacLean said. "And he’s kept us in a lot of other shootouts that we ended up winning.
"He’s had a big impact on our hockey club, which, for a rookie, is saying something."
And yet there are no guarantees that Balastik, a restricted free agent, will be with the Blue Jackets next season.
This summer could be a hectic one for the Jackets, who are looking for at least one top-six forward among free agents.
Balastik’s sniper skills are undeniable. On Saturday, he turned Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood inside out with a wicked little wrister inside the near post.
But Balastik’s game has some shortcomings.
He is not a gifted skater, often lagging behind the play. He’s not a physical player, despite being 6 feet 2, 205 pounds.
And, away from the bigger ice surfaces of Europe, Balastik has had trouble creating space for himself.
In 55 games he has 10 goals —but only three have come at even strength despite spending considerable time on the No. 2 forward line with Jan Hrdina and Vyborny.
Recently, with the promotion of top prospect Alexandre Picard, the Jackets have bumped Balastik to the fourth line, where he’s drawing six minutes per game the past four games.
MacLean said he’s leaning toward bringing Balastik back, but there has "got to be a major commitment by him to improve his skating and his strength."
Balastik, who’s making $600,000 this season, wants to stay in the NHL. He spent the previous eight seasons mostly in the Czech Elite League.
"It’s my first year in (America), and everything is different," Balastik said. "Hockey is different. Off the ice is different. This year has been a big experience for me.
"All my life I played in Europe, with the big ice rinks. More space, more time with the puck. I feel better and better as this year (moves along), so I think next year I can be better than this year."
The Blue Jackets seem to agree.
"What we all forget, too, is that he’s a rookie in the NHL," MacLean said. "He’s (26) years old. But it doesn’t matter if you’re 21 or 26, you’re still a rookie, and playing in the NHL is still an adjustment."
[email protected]
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