Game 74/Phoenix: My Take

In their last 10PM start of the 2010-2011 season, the Columbus Blue Jackets lost, 3-0, to the Phoenix Coyotes in front of 215 people at Jobing.com Arena.

Word is that Rick Nash and R.J. Umberger held a closed-door, players-only meeting after the game.  The DBJ blog had a mole in the room, and thus we offer:

THE TOP 10 COMMENTS OVERHEARD AT THE BLUE JACKETS' PLAYERS-ONLY MEETING

1. Rivet, Moreau, Clark, Murray, Hejda, Stralman - Out.  You're not going to be here next year anyway.

2. Guys, the season isn't over yet.  It's really OK to keep scoring.

End scene - and a preview of the second act

I was going to use some heroic shot of Rusty, but this
just tickled my fancy. (Photo from buylisthomes.com)

Act 1, Scene 10

Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson officially closed the door on the first act of the Columbus Blue Jackets franchise in the midst of its 10th Anniversary season in trading "The Original Blue Jacket," defenseman Rusty Klesla, to the Phoenix Coyotes.

With that, Klesla's name and image now can finally retire to the glass cases around Nationwide Arena that celebrate past players like Odelein, Sanderson, Knutsen and Dineen (We can't forget Dineen!); team ownership and historic events in franchise history.  While he was a serviceable defenseman, he had ongoing injury issues in recent seasons that made his reliability questionable and greatly impacted his productivity.

Game 61/Nashville: My Take

The Columbus Blue Jackets started the last significant western road trip of the season this afternoon in Nashville and the host Predators beat the CBJ, 3-2, in regulation.

There are 82 games in the season...there are 82 games in the season...there are 82 games in the season...

Now that I have that blood pressure-lowering Moment of Zen out of the way, let's proceed.  In my opinion, this game was lost on two plays:

The first is the easy one.  Derek Mackenzie followed up on an R.J. Umberger shot by slamming the puck in at the corner of the net for an apparent goal.  Or was it?




[Special thanks to @RyanReal for his letting me know about the television feed.  While it's choppy, it gets the point across pretty clearly.]