Mmm ... shark fin soup.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Oh, gee, thanks a lot, Minnesota. I thought expansion brothers were supposed to look out for one another! But, no, you went and let Colorado beat you, and bump us down to 5th in the West as a result. Thanks so much. Seriously.
... okay, all kidding aside, let's get to Saturday's game, since I feel at least mildly refreshed after napping the afternoon away. I swear, that music quiz took more out of me than I thought it would.
Sunday's game was ... well, it was something special.
-First game of the season where the Jackets won after being behind during the course of the game. Given, they were only behind for all of about a minute and a half, but it's all about the fact that they pushed harder than ever when they realized that if they didn't act quickly, they could very well get dragged into a proverbial quagmire. And seeing how rough that game was, they really could have been pulled into a sluggish game.
-First win for Pascal Leclaire where he didn't get a shutout, as well as his first win when he started the previous game (which he also won). Although the shot count was quite low, 18 to 17 in favor of Columbus, he still made some key saves that ensured that the Jackets' would stay in the game. Beyond that, this was all about getting past mental blocks. He had yet to put together two solid, back-to-back games ... and he had yet to win without keeping the opposing team off the score sheet. Congratulations, Pazzy ... like the guys at Puck Rakers have been saying, it'll be a bloody travesty if you don't get one of the Stars of the Month from the NHL.
-The ice was just plain bad. Via a connection or two, I heard that one of the ice technicians has recently left to work for the New Jersey Devils, who played their first home game at The Prudential Center on Saturday. It looks like he left after the home game against the Blues on Thursday, no less. So don't hold it against the rest of the crew, who probably had to carry the extra workload on their own shoulders until they find someone new to take over this guy's position. There's a week before the next home game, so there's time to check things out ice-wise and also find someone new.
-The Sharks were chippy, choppy, and at times dirty. I don't deny that the Blue Jackets' play a rough and tumble style of game, especially now with Ken Hitchcock ingraining that in to the team mentality, but the Sharks took it beyond a hard-hitting game with high sticks to both David Vyborny (which was completely ignored or unnoticed by the referees, despite the blood) and Nikolai Zherdev. There was more than one questionable hit of players in to the boards beyond the one that Steve Bernier was called for in the 3rd period. And Jeremy Roenick's banging around of Leclaire after he was knocked in to the crease at the end of the game was bush league. I'm sorry you couldn't get your two goals against the "weak" Blue Jackets, but suck it up.
In other news, as was first reported in a post today by Tom Reed at Puck Rakers, both Duvie Westcott and Fredrik Modin are back in practice and depending on how well they do, could be in the lineup against Los Angeles on Wednesday, when the team tangos with the Kings at the Staples Center. I have to admit, the Nash-Peca-Modin line intrigues me. Two big guys that can cause tons of havoc in front of the net can be pretty brutal, if done right. I wonder if Mike Peca will feel any sorts of height inferiority complex standing next to those two (I kid, I kid).
There's also the fact that Nash and Modin are both considered left wingers. And besides that line, there was also a line with Sergei Fedorov, Gilbert Brule, and Jared Boll. To tell you the truth, that one confuses me more than anything, since both Brule and Fedorov are centers. And Boll, even though he has been a force to be reckoned with on the ice in terms of drawing penalties and just plain pest-ing it up, still just has two points (both goals) on the season so far. I'll wait to pass judgment, however, until I see such a line in action (if it does, indeed, stay intact for Wednesday's game).
Attendance was 400 peoples (heh ... peoples) more than Thursday's game against St. Louis, so the Jackets' are starting to draw fans back little by little. But they need to continue to play the way they have been playing. A long week away from home with two late games on the west coast could also hurt their attempts to stay within the mentality of Columbus and Ohio sports fans who are pre-occupied with the Buckeyes, and possibly a better-than-average Cleveland Browns team. And with the NBA season just around the corner, some doofus named "King James" who reigns in Cleveland might pull some attention away from the Jackets, too.
Now, I have some laundry to take care of.
... okay, all kidding aside, let's get to Saturday's game, since I feel at least mildly refreshed after napping the afternoon away. I swear, that music quiz took more out of me than I thought it would.
Sunday's game was ... well, it was something special.
-First game of the season where the Jackets won after being behind during the course of the game. Given, they were only behind for all of about a minute and a half, but it's all about the fact that they pushed harder than ever when they realized that if they didn't act quickly, they could very well get dragged into a proverbial quagmire. And seeing how rough that game was, they really could have been pulled into a sluggish game.
-First win for Pascal Leclaire where he didn't get a shutout, as well as his first win when he started the previous game (which he also won). Although the shot count was quite low, 18 to 17 in favor of Columbus, he still made some key saves that ensured that the Jackets' would stay in the game. Beyond that, this was all about getting past mental blocks. He had yet to put together two solid, back-to-back games ... and he had yet to win without keeping the opposing team off the score sheet. Congratulations, Pazzy ... like the guys at Puck Rakers have been saying, it'll be a bloody travesty if you don't get one of the Stars of the Month from the NHL.
-The ice was just plain bad. Via a connection or two, I heard that one of the ice technicians has recently left to work for the New Jersey Devils, who played their first home game at The Prudential Center on Saturday. It looks like he left after the home game against the Blues on Thursday, no less. So don't hold it against the rest of the crew, who probably had to carry the extra workload on their own shoulders until they find someone new to take over this guy's position. There's a week before the next home game, so there's time to check things out ice-wise and also find someone new.
-The Sharks were chippy, choppy, and at times dirty. I don't deny that the Blue Jackets' play a rough and tumble style of game, especially now with Ken Hitchcock ingraining that in to the team mentality, but the Sharks took it beyond a hard-hitting game with high sticks to both David Vyborny (which was completely ignored or unnoticed by the referees, despite the blood) and Nikolai Zherdev. There was more than one questionable hit of players in to the boards beyond the one that Steve Bernier was called for in the 3rd period. And Jeremy Roenick's banging around of Leclaire after he was knocked in to the crease at the end of the game was bush league. I'm sorry you couldn't get your two goals against the "weak" Blue Jackets, but suck it up.
In other news, as was first reported in a post today by Tom Reed at Puck Rakers, both Duvie Westcott and Fredrik Modin are back in practice and depending on how well they do, could be in the lineup against Los Angeles on Wednesday, when the team tangos with the Kings at the Staples Center. I have to admit, the Nash-Peca-Modin line intrigues me. Two big guys that can cause tons of havoc in front of the net can be pretty brutal, if done right. I wonder if Mike Peca will feel any sorts of height inferiority complex standing next to those two (I kid, I kid).
There's also the fact that Nash and Modin are both considered left wingers. And besides that line, there was also a line with Sergei Fedorov, Gilbert Brule, and Jared Boll. To tell you the truth, that one confuses me more than anything, since both Brule and Fedorov are centers. And Boll, even though he has been a force to be reckoned with on the ice in terms of drawing penalties and just plain pest-ing it up, still just has two points (both goals) on the season so far. I'll wait to pass judgment, however, until I see such a line in action (if it does, indeed, stay intact for Wednesday's game).
Attendance was 400 peoples (heh ... peoples) more than Thursday's game against St. Louis, so the Jackets' are starting to draw fans back little by little. But they need to continue to play the way they have been playing. A long week away from home with two late games on the west coast could also hurt their attempts to stay within the mentality of Columbus and Ohio sports fans who are pre-occupied with the Buckeyes, and possibly a better-than-average Cleveland Browns team. And with the NBA season just around the corner, some doofus named "King James" who reigns in Cleveland might pull some attention away from the Jackets, too.
Now, I have some laundry to take care of.
Labels: attendance, injuries, post-game, San Jose Sharks
Setting up the goaltender guidelines.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
After Pascal Leclaire got his fourth shutout on Thursday against St. Louis, and Fredrik Norrena got his first win of the season in a brutal, high-scoring game against Chicago on Tuesday, I concluded that there are now a couple sets of rules instead of just the "We win if we get a shutout/we lose if we don't." Here's how things go, nine games in:
If Fredrik Norrena is in net:
-The Blue Jackets will win in a wild score-fest.
-The Blue Jackets will lose in a nail-biter, one-goal game/SO loss/OT loss.
If Pascal Leclaire is in net:
-The Blue Jackets will win via a shutout.
-The Blue Jackets will lose ... badly.
As always, these rules are subject to change. Suffice it to say, the one impediment that Leclaire has left to overcome is his current inability to record consecutive wins when he is in net, right after a game he won. And this is a big impediment at that, if the Jackets want to push for something more than .500 hockey. And just from watching them, they really believe they're better than just .500 hockey.
I'm going to presume that Leclaire will start tonight when the Jackets' welcome the San Jose Sharks to Nationwide, and win or lose, Norrena will get the call when the team flies out to Los Angeles for a game with the Kings on Wednesday. Of course, considering how my presumptions usually go, you don't want to bet on that statement.
Lost in the beastly play of not only Leclaire, but Rick Nash's 5-game goal scoring streak (with 9 points in all during that same period), one other player has been consistently producing for the Jackets the past two games as well, notching 3 goals and 1 assist. No, it's not Nikolai Zherdev, or even Mike Peca. It's actually Jackets' centerman Jiri Notovny, who I've admittedly -- and regrettably -- overlooked.
I admit, it's hard to say much about the guy, but in a sense, that's a good thing. He just seems to ... be there, whenever he tallies a point. He only seemed to appear from the very mist he's been concealed in when, before a befuddled Nationwide crowd on Thursday, he was given an automatic goal on what would have normally been a penalty shot. This happened due to the fact that he was in on a breakaway in the opposing zone while the Blues had an empty net, only to be hooked from behind enough to not be able to toss the puck home.
Even I had to take a second to figure out what was going on. Having never before seen a goal awarded in such a way before, but knowing the rule existed, I wasn't sure if he'd just be given the tally, or if he actually had to go through the process of an actual penalty shot on an empty net, and just flip it in. I got to admit, that would've been hilarious if he did have to do that. Well, until he ended up missing the gaping net, a la Dallas/Edmonton from last year. Not that he would!
Speaking of the crowds at Nationwide, they're still regrettably sparse. Thursday's crowd was a couple hundred short of 13,000 ... that extra 1,000 or so fans compared to the previous two home games must be dejected Cleveland Indians' fans. But, you know what? That's okay. Really. The team needs to show that this good start to the season isn't just some fluke. And while I don't want to jinx it, even if they end up blowing up in the final two games of the month, they'll still finish at .500 for the month of October, which would be their best opening month in team history.
Three things I want to see tonight:
-The Chimera/Malhotra/Fritsche line getting a point, after all that hard work they put in Thursday.
-David Vyborny hopefully continuing to shake off whatever was ailing him at the start. He has a three-game point streak going (3 assists), and he needs to just keep on chugging along.
-The Jackets' pouring it on hard in the beginning. The Sharks are wounded, and pissed from last night's bludgeoning at the hands of Detroit. I could tell that much from the snippets I watched on Center Ice, especially seeing Joe Thornton lashing out at times.
Labels: post-game, pre-game, San Jose Sharks, St. Louis Blues
