2013 Columbus Blue Jackets - The third "grading period"

The second half of the season got underway on March 9 at Nationwide Arena.  The Blue Jackets were riding a five-game points streak, and they had won three in a row as they came off a win in overtime against the Canucks.  On this Saturday afternoon the opponent would be the rival Detroit Red Wings. This game was the front end of a true home-and-home that would be the final two matchups between the clubs in the regular season.  To this point the Jackets were 2-0-1 against the rivals, and a win could clinch a win in the season series for the first time in franchise history.

The Home-and-Home:

A just-short-of-capacity crowd turned out on a beautiful March Saturday to watch the Red Wings final visit to Columbus as a divisional rival.  The home team did not disappoint the locals as they played with a confidence that was born of the hot streak they were riding.  The hard work of the team was rewarded at the 13:46 mark of the first period as Cam Atkinson scored on a pass from Matt Calvert, who skated behind the Wings net and stole the puck off the stick of Niklas Kronwall.  It was a heads-up hustle play that would come to be a hallmark of these wings when playing on the same line.  Jack Johnson added a power-play goal at 5:12 of the second and Nick Foligno got the chili goal 1:23 later.  The Wings were held scoreless as Sergei Bobrovsky earned the shutout on 30 shots faced.  This was the first shutout of Bobrovsky's NHL career, and he was rewarded with the game's first star.

The next afternoon the same teams met on the ice at Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit.  The Jackets were seeking to push their win streak to five games, but it did not prove to be as easy as the previous afternoon.  After a scoreless first period the Jackets got on the board first with a Derick Brassard goal at 3:10 of the second. Jakub Kindl equalized only 30 seconds later.  But the tie did not last long.  After 45 seconds the Blue Jackets jumped out to a 2-1 lead on a slapshot from the top of the left circle.  This lead lasted for the remainder of the second period and the first 25 seconds of the third.  But at that early stage of the 3rd period  the Wings drew even again as Johan Franzen scored on the power play.  The goalies stood strong for the rest of regulation and for the entire overtime period, leading to the teams to their second shootout of the year. And in this shootout the Blue Jackets prevailed 2 goals to 1.  The Blue Jackets had, for the first time in club history, played an entire season series against the Wings without a regulation loss, winning the season series 4-0-1.  The points streak was extended to seven games, and the wins streak to 5.  But most Jackets fans would tell you at that stage of the season that domination of the Red Wings would be mighty good satisfaction.

Another long stretch at home:

Two nights later the Jackets hosted the Canucks for the second time in five days.  The game was back and forth throughout, but both teams seemed to be tired more than anything.  Both teams scored in the second; the Blue Jackets' goal coming from Mark Letestu, and the Canucks' goal from Jason Garrison.  Roberto Luongo faced 27 shots while Bobrovsky was in net again for the Blue Jackets and faced 38 from the Canucks.  Late in the game the resolve of Bobrovsky was put to the test as Daniel Sedin slid the blade of his stick up and under Bob's mask, and no call was made, even as Bob directed the referee to the replay on the scoreboard that clearly showed the stick invading his personal space.  After a scoreless overtime it was on to the skills competition again, where Vancouver won on a controversial attempt by Mason Raymond, where the puck's forward movement stopped as Raymond performed a spin-o-rama.  The five game winning streak was over, but the points streak ran out to 8 games.

After another night off it was back at it on March 14th as the Blackhawks came to Nationwide.  Again the teams played a scoreless first period, but on this night it was the opposition on the board first.  Johnny Oduya scored his first of the year at 16:45 of the second, but Jack Johnson scored on the power play 52 seconds later to knot the game at 1 apiece.  The game remained tied through the third and the overtime.  Bobrovsky stopped 39 of 40 while Chicago's Corey Crawford was good on 29 of 30.  In the shootout skills, the Blackhawks had goals from Toews and Kane while only Anisimov put his shot in for the Jackets.  Despite the loss, the points streak grew to a franchise-record-tying 9 games. The point moved them ahead of Edmonton in the standings and into 12th place in the Western Conference.

Saturday the 16th saw the Phoenix Coyotes come to town for the only time this season.  The teams played to a double-shutout at the end of overtime; Bobrovsky's second career shutout.  The Jackets were going to break the franchise record for consecutive games with a point and push the streak into double-digits.  All that remained was the final outcome in their fourth straight game decided in the skills.  Only two rounds were needed as the Blue Jackets got goals from Anisimov and Letestu and the Coyotes suffered a missed shot by Boedker and a save on Noted Jacket Killer Steve Sullivan's attempt.  Bobrovsky stopped 39 shots in the winning effort.  The win moved the Jackets ahead of Dallas and into 11th, tied on points with the Predators who had a game in hand.

And that was the stage three nights later as the Predators came to town for the first of two they would play in Columbus on the season.  Once again the first period ended in a 0-0 tie, but 4:08 into the second the Blue Jackets put the first goal on the board on a goal by Fedor Tyutin.  Just more than five and a half minutes later the lead was extended on Mark Letestu's 7th goal of the year.  The Preds got one back before the end of the period.  But halfway through the third Nikita Nikitin pushed the lead back out to 2 goals with a power play marker.  Derick Brassard made it a 3-goal lead at 12:41, and Nashville scored twice in the last 2:01 of the game, but it wasn't enough to beat Bobrovsky on the night, and the Blue Jackets came away 4-3 winners.  The points streak was now 11 games and the Jackets moved into 10th in the conference, tied on points with Phoenix and San Jose.

On the 22nd the Jackets closed out the homestand in the first of back-to-back games, playing the Calgary Flames at home for the last time this season.  And when an evening's scoresheet features goals by both Jared Boll and Colton Gillies, you know it was a good night.  The Jackets lit up Miikka Kiprusoff for 5 goals on 28 shots, and Bobrovsky remained the number one cop on the force with a 24-for-25 performance.  Nick Foligno had two goals and Arty Anisimov added another in addition to the Boll and Gillies tallies.  The lone Flames goal was scored by former Blue Jacket Curtis Glencross to tie the game at 1 early in the second. The win pushed the Jackets over .500 for the first time since the second game of the season, and the Jackets stood in 9th, tied on points with 8th-place San Jose.  A team that had been pronounced dead just three weeks early was now the hottest team in the league with points in 12 straight, and they were into the playoff discussion, usually in terms such as "the team no one wants to face in the playoffs".

Now we'll see how resilient this team is...:

One of the few negatives that would be thrown around when discussing the playoff chances of the Blue Jackets at this point in the season was "they've played at least one game more than the teams they're battling."  The other major concern voiced "they play only 5 of their remaining games at home".  But at this point there was no one who wanted to count them out, either.  And with this in mind the Jackets travelled to Nashville on the 23rd to open a four-game trip that would take them to Western Canada for three game afterwards.  Nashville was showing some signs of fading, but were still only 2 points behind the Jackets in the standings.  But as good as the Blue Jackets had been looking prior to this game, they looked bad on this night.  Bobrovsky was chased just over 10 minutes into the game with the Jackets down 4-1.  And while Steve Mason performed admirably in relief, not allowing any goals on 12 shots, the Blue Jackets had not managed to score more than a second goal.  Nashville added an empty-netter to finish the night off and hand the Jackets a 5-2 loss.  The streak was now over, and the question was "how will they bounce back from this?"

The first stop out west was in Vancouver, and just as in their last meeting in Columbus, the game was close-fought battle.  Bobrovsky and Schneider both had shutouts as the game went to a shootout at 0-0.  Bobrovsky faced 34 shots, twice as many as Schneider had.  In the shootout only 1 of the 6 shooters scored, and unfortunately that was Maxime Lapierre for the Canucks and a 1-0 defeat of the Jackets.

The next game came in Edmonton two nights later, and the outcome was, once again, not what was hoped for.  Even though Cam Atkinson staked the Jackets to a lead 10 seconds into the game, and Matt Calvert extended the lead to two at 12:04, the night would belong to the Oilers.  Magnus Paajarvi scored before the end of the first period and Jordan Eberle tied it 32 seconds into the second period.  After Anisimov made it 3-2 with 1:26 left in the second period, Shawn Horcoff tied it 31 seconds later.  At the end of the second period it was a 3-3 game.  Atkinson put the Jackets ahead again 27 seconds into the third, but the Oilers followed with three unanswered to win 6-4.

In their final game of the road trip the Jacket travelled to Calgary for the second half of back-to-back games.   Letestu scored the only goal of the first period, and Brian McGrattan equalized it early in the second.  The Jackets then got goals from Vinny Prospal and Calvert scored about a minute and a half apart near the halfway point to make it 3-1.  Mikael Backlund scored less than a minute later to make it 3-2.  The Jackets then scored on Derick Brassard's tally at 16:19.  The Flames got a power play goal a minute and a half later from Dennis Wideman and the Jackets got the last goal of the period from Ryan Johansen with less than two minutes to go.  In the last period the Flames got a goal from Curtis Glencross and R. J. Umberger gave the Blue Jackets an empty-net goal as insurance, and the Jackets won 6-4, and Mason got the win in a rare start.

The final game of the month, and of the third 12 games, was on Easter Sunday in Columbus as the Anaheim Ducks came to town.  Derick Brassard scored about halfway through the game to put the Jackets up, but Emerson Etem tied it early in the third period.  The game went to overtime, and in the extra period the Jackets got a goal from Letestu with a minute remaining.  The 2-1 win gave the Blue Jackets two in a row and ran their record to 15-14-7 for 37 points.  This put the Jackets in 8th place, but they'd played as many as 3 games more than teams that trailed them.

Turn the page:

The final 12 games would not start until after the trade deadline on the 3rd of April.  With the Blue Jackets suddenly finding themselves in a playoff position, it was looking more than likely that the team that took the ice on Easter was going to change, at least in some small way, before they next played.  But the team also went from dead last in the Western Conference, and level with Florida for the worst record in the league, on the morning of the 9th, to a playoff slot at the end of the month after a brutal 12 games in 22 days.  Optimism was building in Columbus heading into the fourth quarter.

Assessments:

Forwards:

The young forwards, particularly Atkinson and Calvert, were really beginning to come into their own at this point.  Veterans who had started slow, particularly R. J. Umberger and Derick Brassard, were starting to hit their stride as well.  The team was getting out to quick leads and they were getting crucial goals at important points in the game.  As the improvement from the previous 12 games continued, it is more than fair to give the forwards a B+ for the term, the grade being held down by twice being shutout.

Defense:

The defense remained strong through this period, with only two games where it could be said there were lapses.  Dalton Prout continued to be the surprise player of the season for the Jackets.  The penalty kill continued to be strong and as players came back from injury they didn't seem to have missed a step in the process.  Tough defense has become one of this team's hallmarks.  The grade for this term is an A.

Goal:

This can be assessed in basically one word:  BOB!  But to elaborate, Bobrovsky started 11 of the 12 games.  He had one stinker of an outing that resulted in his being pulled halfway through the first period, when Mason stepped in and closed the door.  Mason was good, but not great, in his one start.  But overall, with the strength of Bobrovsky and the competent backup work from Mason, this aspect of the team also grades as an A.

Through 36 games:

Leading Scorers: Vinny Prospal (10 goals, 11 assists, 21 points, 36 games),  Mark Letestu (9 G, 11 A, 20 P, 34 GP),  Derrick Brassard (7 G, 11 A, 18 P, 34 GP)

Goalies:
Sergei Bobrovsky: 12-8-6, 2.13 GAA, .927 Svs%, 26 GP
Steve Mason: 3-6-1, 2.95 GAA, .899 Svs%, 13 GP

A last off-ice post

This isn't something that is totally off-ice, but it's not Blue Jackets related; at least not directly.  The other party's name and ava have been redacted to keep them sheltered in the dark recesses of cowardice where these sentiments belong.  And it's this exchange that more or less highlights why it's so hard for athletes to come out, why young athletes get steered away from sports by "locker room banter" and why groups like You Can Play and Athlete Ally, and actions such as the coming-out of Jason Collins earlier this week, are so important.

This was captured from my Janetter client, so the the conversation starts with the tweet at the bottom.  I mean, really???  Is this where we are at in 2013?  We hate a guy, and the best that we can do is call him "gay"?  Do you realize that in doing so, you're saying that "gay" is a bad thing, worthy of fighting?  And so what's that tell me that you think about me?  After all, my Twitter profile says "LGBT" in it, so if you followed me, you either know that going in, or you didn't bother to learn that about me before following me.  But when you made that tweet last night, you were equating who I am, a gay woman, with someone that you hate and want to fight.  And even better, when I ask why you are calling him gay, you also reason "because he is?" without any sort of proof of this.

To be clear, I don't like Jordin Tootoo. I think he's a dirty scumbag of a hockey player.  I don't like being in a position where I can be interpreted to be defending him.  But at the same time, I don't like you using one of my personal traits, my sexuality, as code for and justification of your hatred for him and then going on to say that you want to fight him for it.  This is bullying.  This is wrong.  This is why, for the first time, I've blocked someone on Twitter.  Because, to be honest, you aren't worth my reading even response tweets after I've unfollowed, and you don't deserve to read my tweets.  And you're damned lucky that I felt you weren't worth my friends knowing who you are so that they could turn around and tear into you.  The Blue Jackets and the sport of hockey don't deserve fans like you; you're worse than Jordin Tootoo could dream of being.