Gallos' Thoughts on Game 29: Wild

Last night the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the Minnesota Wild 4-0 in front of a snowpocalypse dimmed crowd of around 11k.  Small for a Friday night, good for a snowpocalypse.  I know we made the trip because we knew the Minnesota people would make fun of us.  And, as I pointed out to my number 1 son, snow in Minnesota is completely different than snow in Ohio, as it is generally colder.  But he pointed out that wasn't the case in Buffalo, and that he had already been taunted by someone from Buffalo.  So off we went.

The first highlight of the game came during the scoreless first period, when I scored my Christmas present, my new Nick Foligno, number 71 jersey.  I thought to myself, 'it sure would be nice if Nick would score a goal to christen this baby', and I didn't have long to wait.  Now I didn't come to this decision lightly, or because he scored that beauty of a goal the other night.  I've been leaning this way for awhile.  I was thinking I wanted a white away Jersey as a complement to the others in my collection, but in the end I decided that white was not compatible with my eating habits, and BBQ spotted is not a traditional CBJ color.  Hmmm.  Maybe those camo jerseys.....

Even though the first period remained scoreless, the Jackets were skating well, and generating some offensive pressure, so it was a good period.  Then things changed in the second period.  At the 1:17 mark of the second period, Cam Atkinson got a good feed from Dubinsky as they went storming down ice

.  As he got to the top of the circle, he snapped off a wrist shot in mid-stride, and beat Backstrom far side corner, top shelf.  Backstrom seemed a bit surprised by the shot, and more so that it went in the goal.

Four minutes later, with Matt Cooke in the penalty box for hooking, Nick Foligno christened my new sweater by scoring from the edge of the crease for a power play goal.  The assists went to Johansen and Umberger, and Nick earned the goal by potting a rebound from the edge of the crease.  Later in the second period, consecutive penalties by Anisimov and Dubinsky gave Minnesota over a minute of 5 on 3 power play, but they couldn't do anything with it, and the penalty kill did the job. Really nice work by Tyutin as the sole defenseman for the 5 on 3 part.    The CBJ entered the third period with a 2-0 lead.

After what seemed a slow start to the third period, the CBJ got rolling again.  After the Wild killed an early penalty, Comeau, Anisimov and Jenner came down the ice.  Arty set up Jenner with a beautiful cross ice feed and his wrist shot beat Backstrom to give the CBJ a 3-0 lead.

At about the midway point of the third period, Johansen fed Foligno for a break away, and as Foligno came in on the net he dropped a backhanded pass to Umberger, who only had to keep his stick on the ice for the goal.

Leading 4-0, the Jackets tightened up and kept the pressure on with the focus on preserving McElhinney's shut out.  The CBJ kept up sustained pressure even until the final minute, which found them with multiple offensive chances as the clock wound down.  It was a very complete win for the CBJ.  Foligno had a goal and an assist.  Johansen had 2 assists to break his personal record for points scored in a season after only 29 games in an 82 game season.  It is very enjoyable watching Johansen's development.  He is gaining confidence in his ability, and playing with authority.  It is GREAT to see.

Back to back shut outs allow the CBJ to maintain pace in the Metro, 3 points out of third place.  The CBJ will need to string together a bunch of W's just to maintain their position in the wild Metropolitan division, as you can expect just about all of these teams to shake off poor starts and start winning.  It should be interesting from here.

Game haiku:

Wild beats Chicago

Runs into Jackets buzz saw

Wild leave town tamed

GO JACKETS!