Kevin Bieksa, Christian Ehrhoff (pipedream), Sheldon Souray, Matt Carle, Tomas Kaberle, Francois Beauchemin, you have company among top four cap casualty candidates...

After searching one of my favorite sites : Cap Geek (<- Must bookmark). Another potential top 4 defender finds himself on the chopping block. Ian White. First mentioned in the RFA portion of the Free Agency Primer (check it out!) Calgary is only 400K below the cap and White in an RFA who will likely command more than that. A midseason trade from Toronto, he spent the better part of his time with Calgary paired with Robyn Regehre and compiled the following combined line

13 Goals 25 Assists 51 PIM. Looking for a fresh contract, I'd expect he'll be in the 2.5 million dollar range. Too rich for Calgary unless they make another [terrible] drastic move.

We have our own version of Ian White in Anton Stralman, but White is more polished and can eat more minutes. Watching Stralman throughout the year his play waned at times. If we make a move for a player like White, I don't see Stralman fitting in the mix next year.

I'll allow you to do the side by side comparison of the two to see if it's worth a little extra coin for a guy like White.

July 1 has never been a big day in Jackets land, nor will it ever be. Sure we might sign a Rick Nash to a long-term deal, but he was ours to begin with. As a budget team, we will never be in the market for one of the elite free agents. A big market team will frontload the heck out of a deal to make sure that doesn't happen. Tack on a few 500K years on the end of a deal and Columbus is officially out of the mix.

Now while most teams see the greener grass in the UFA and spend their money...players happen to become available.

Snapshot: 2008. Wade Redden is a free agent. WE BID ON HIM. We commit to landing a #1 defender (who has since faded)... of course we our outbidded by the Rangers. They then secure Michal Roszival for a nice 5 million per.

Well sure enough the Rangers realize they are bumping with the salary cap and they have no forwards! Except of course for Gomez and Drury who they spent 16 million a year on. GASP. Suddenly, the once off the market...Fedor Tyutin, becomes tradeable. We know how that turned out.

I prefer to remember the 08-09 version of my Tyutin for the sake of this argument.

What this boiled down to was would you like Redden for 7 years...7 million per. OR Fedor Tyutin for 4 years...3 million per?

Today...given that choice I do not know anyone that would pick Redden.

Now in order to this, we did have to part ways with Nikolai Zherdev and we did have to take a year of Christian Backman, but deals of this sort will become available in the coming days. I guarantee it.

My plan:

1) Vancouver signs Dan Hamhuis, which officially gives them 2 NHL bluelines. They need to move someone and they are looking for Bottom 6 forwards. Do we have any of those? I'd love, love, love to trade for Christian Ehrhoff, but it's just not going to happen. (For giggles I'm offering Filatov, Pahlsson, and a 2nd).

Trade #1

Kevin Bieksa (3.5) for Chris Clark (2.5) + 2nd Round Pick + Cody Goloubef

Logic: Vancouver needs the cap space more than anything. We take on an additional million in salary, but pick up a top 4 defender. Bieksa bring an offensive, aggressiveness that we have never had in our top 4. He would pay dividends on the PP and if partnered with one of our defensive guys could produce good numbers. A high pick and a prospect. Now, Nuck fans you can't try to drop Clark out of this deal. If he's not in the deal, I'm not giving up both of those assets. He's in the deal to balance money (on our end) and provide bottom 6 help. Dan Hinote's addition to the team makes Clark redundant.

A more realistic deal might be Andrew Murray + 3rd, because Vancouver wouldn't be taking as much cash back...but what's the fun in that?

Trade #2

Sheldon Souray (4.5, 4.5) for Mike Commodore (3.8, 3.5, 3.35) + Jared Boll (~1) + Teddy Ruth

Logic: Souray hasn't been happy in a long time in Edmonton and his cap number is actually 5.4 million. He's a huge shot that would instantly make our powerplay feared. He is not as strong defensively as Commodore, but he's certainly a Top 4 defender. Teams love players like Boll, I don't. For the last three season I don't feel like he's grown as a player. He spoiled me with a breakaway goal during his rookie year, a real beauty. It's been the high point of his hockey career for me. I add Teddy Ruth otherwise known as Sergei Fedorov. Ruth is an interesting prospect. I'd probably be more excited about it if we didn't currently have 8 d prospects in about the same realm right now.

In this plan we take on 700K in salary, assuming we would sign Boll for a million.

My lineup

Huselius - Brassard - Nash

Filatov - Vermette - Voracek

Umberger - Pahlson - Dorsett

Moreau - MacKenzie - Calvert

Souray - Bieksa

Hejda - Klesla

Tyutin - Russell

Methot

Other targets to watch. 

Pittsburgh currently has 5 nice defenders. The most tradeable to me looks to be either Letang or Goligoski. They would want wingers. They'd most likely target Umberger. If that's the price, I probably pass. If they'd be interested in Filatov + Grunt... I'd put more thought into it. I'd really only move Filatov if it lands us that piece...I'm not sure either of those defensemen are that piece.

Philadelphia would drive Daniel Briere here, but there's no way we are interested. They are bumping the camp and rolling with Boucher and Leighton in net. They'd love to have Mason...but they can't. All we could offer them is salary cap relief. Jeff Carter, Scott Hartnell or Matt Carle would seem to be the odd pieces out if someone moves...and I suspect one of these players does move. The problem with Philly is that we'd have to take on a bunch of salary and I'm not sure we are in position to do that.

Minnesota, I look at their roster and I cannot imagine how they are so close to the cap. I wouldn't touch most of those contract for anything. Two I would look at would be Brent Burns or Cam Barker. I doubt they'd move Barker since they traded for him down the stretch. I can see Burns possibly being in play. They'd want offense. Similar to Pittsburgh, they'd be looking at Umberger...I pass. Filatov...maybe can work something out, but again I don't feel great about it.

As other deals are made and Chicago purges the rest of their roster, more players will become available. July 3rd...I've got a feeling.

Hit the Comments, Fire Away.

Rumors have swirled that the Blue Jackets have traded for Jason Spezza at the cost of Derick Brassard, Kristian Huselius, and the 4th Overall Pick.

UPDATE 10PM

Darren Dreger is reporting via Twitter : "I just asked Bryan Murray if I can kill the "Spezza to Columbus rumour"...he replied, "yes, please do." End of story. For now."

While I believe there may be legs to this rumor, this may disintegrate. If for instance Ottawa tries to offload a contract like Jonathan Cheechoo, then thinks may fall apart.

Who doesn't love June hockey?

_________________________________

The fun part, the rumor.

If I'm the Jackets I do this. If I'm the Senators (and Spezza quietly wants out / as opposed to Heatley who loudly wanted out)  I do this.

Financials

For the Jackets, Spezza will make 8 million dollars (4 of which he is due on July 1st). If we are going to make this trade, we will have to pay up.

Outgoing dollars of Brassard 2.8 and Huselius 4.75 total 7.55. That's pretty close.This passes the sniff test on our end.

Futures

The future is now for the Jackets. At 27, Spezza is the top line center the Jackets have never had and he'd likely stay that way for the next 6 seasons.

Huselius is ultimately a dollar sign that has to go the other way, so the future cost is Brassard and the 4th. Brassard's wildly inconsistent play, allows me to make this deal with little concern. The best case for Brassard is that he becomes Jason Spezza. With times and pounds added to his frame I can see him becoming a Danny Briere type of player, but can we wait til that happens? I don't think so.

The 4th overall, could be the solid blueliner that we have always wanted, but in reality it would take 3-4 more years before this player has a real impact on the team. It is essential that young players continue to churn through the system on entry year deals. Especially for a team on a budget, but every pick is a maybe. Focusing in and hitting a couple 2nd rounders needs to be focus if this deal is legit.

If landing a true #1 center in his primed, signed to a reasonable deal costs us the 4th overall draft pick, so be it. You do that deal.

Lines

Here's my top 6 folks

Nash - Spezza - Voracek

Umberger - Vermette - Filatov

Yikes.

I have heard rumblings of us being active on the trade front with Ottawa, Philadelphia, and Boston and I would expect that a deal is made. I would also expect Brassard to be on another team next year because he's one of our most tradeable, interesting assets. Either landing a top pair defender or a top line center. I'd be very surprised if he were on the team at the start of the year.

Hit the comments.

Yay nay on the Spezza?

In direct competition with the Light the Lamp CBJ blog, the Cannon have fired back with their own baby, Logan. Everything is healthy. Very much like a current Blue Jacket, sleepy, doesn't have his legs yet and his muscles move in ways that they are not intended to move.

Fortunately we have plenty of highly capable writers to carry the flag as I will be out of operation for a while.

Final Jacket thought for a while: I noticed we lost in another shootout. I was thinking that if we had won half of these shootout we've been in.... things really wouldn't feel that bad. So critical to get those points for team morale.

It seems every game we've played in the last 4 weeks "we haven't found our legs". Every team has more legs than us. What gives? Do our players have legs? Are they so poorly conditioned that they can't keep up with most teams? Is our roster slow? Do other teams simply want it more? Nashville beat us decisively tonight 5-3. It wasn't that close

Nashville beats up because they are always skating. Their forwards are hungry and their defensemen are skilled. The top 3 defenders on Nashville would immediately be the best defensemen in Blue Jackets history. That's a major difference. Our ineptitude in our backend hints that there needs to be a shake up there. Our players do no generate speed through the neutral zone and break out passes aren't made. We don't have defenders join a rush in a meaningful way.

The play of our defensemen is in my opinion the single biggest reason we are in the place we are right now. Commodore is much much worse than the physical, positionally strong defender of last year. Jan Hejda looks like he wants every in the league to forget his name again. Tyutin has been puck clumsy. Methot hasn't taken a step. This team must be missing Christian Backman. Barf. This is by far the weakest part of our roster. A good defense beats a good offense.

Who on our defense is a scoring threat from the backend? Ignoring Russell's 3 week streak... the answer is simply nobody. That really sucks when your defense isn't shutting anyone down either. What are they good at?

Defensive turnovers (Mark Methot) lead to the first two goals. If I recall on the second two goals they were the result of terrible positioning of Mike Commodore.

What happened to our 5 on 5 hunger from last year? We overmatched most teams in 5 on 5 play last year. This year we can't put together two decent shifts.

Who played welll tonight?

Steve Sullivan is what is wrong with our team. He constantly is playing. He's always looking for a way to make a defense miserable. It doesn't matter how old or injured he is. He's a hungry guy, a guy that has built a career out of it.

I can't point out a single blue shirt that played a good game, maybe Umberger. I think it is time for some intervention. I'd hope we would have already pulled out the players only meeting at this point. The leaders of this team need to seriously step it up.

Doghouse: Hitch. Big Papi makes a lot of money.

While it feels like we are in a terrible spot.... we are in about the same place as last year. We simply have to stop this slide. We have to win games. We need to break out and put together a great stretch of hockey.

Comments? Fire Away

The sad thing is that our team play continues to be better than it was for weeks. That just goes to show you how far off we were... because tonight was not enough to win. At least we plugged most of the gaping holes in our defenses, improved our PK (somewhat) and have limited odd man rushes (somewhat).

The first goal of the game from the Ducks I called after our shot. The Ducks carried up ice 4 against 2. One of the two was Stralman (who again looked poor tonight). Needless to say the puck found the net. Other than that there were not many odd man rushes.

This team always seems to struggle with goal scoring confidence. If we don't score early... we don't score often. This is the value of a good PP, but that didn't cash in tonight. We had a 5 on 3 to get it done, but we just didn't. We go in and out of the zone.

Brassard, Voracek, Nash, Torres, and Chimera were all invisible tonight. We need more from 61. We need goals.

Fredrik Modin returned from injury and looked pretty good. He skated hard and got more than a couple shots on net. It still drives me crazy how a man that big doesn't hit someone.

We do lose Derek Dorsett tonight, likely with a broken hand. We seem to have a much better record with this guy in the lineup. Looking at the replays he had already injured his hand and then challenged a guy to a fight... not a bright move.


Mancrush: Kristian Huselius. I thought he played real well in all three zones tonight. He competed hard and made some nice takeaways.

Doghouse: Commodore and Hejda. If these guys plays like this they are not a value to an NHL roster. These guys absolutely have to shut down players from the other team. There were far too many sloppy shifts from these guys in our own zone. Kyle Calder made them look silly tonight. When they are not shutting down players they are not contributing. Mark Methot has been our best defensive defensemen for the past month... that isn't going to cut it. Hejda's penalty in the final 10 minutes sunk us tonight.

Very disappointing game tonight. We absolutely have to finish strong in December and this is the type of game we have to win. Everyone seems to be winning in the Western Conference right now. We need to hang in the mix.

On the drive home today I heard a snippet on the radio that we may be interested in defender Brian Lee of the Ottawa Senators. This was on The Fan and I was expecting to find the rumor elsewhere on the internet because the Fan is often not the first on a scoop.

My first thought is... wasn't he a highly though of first rounder? A nice right shot defender that could play a little powerplay and had the size to play in the defensive zone. The knack has been that he isn't physical enough... This led to my second thought... isn't this Anton Stralman?

While I do think that we need to upgrade our defense, I'm not sure that Lee does that. While it is just a rumor, it's the first I've heard on the season. I'm not sure what Ottawa would want in return, but I'm sure we are offering one of our extra wings now the Freddy Mo is coming back into the lineup... for a few games.

MAJOR EDIT:

It was brought to my attention that this was officially tweeted by Aaron Portzline. I don't tweet. I Puckrake.

In my opinion. I trade Filatov. It is obvious to me that Filatov will not be a great NHL player for us within the next 2 years. If that's the case then he will struggle to get ice time with Hitch behind the bench and Nash, Huselius, Voracek and Umberger in front of him. I do not hesitate to trade Filatov and the Sens, who have a terrible time on offense badly need to replace Dany Heatley. Filatov would play for the Sens right now and he'd be on a top 2 line.

Now the question becomes value. I'd assume that Ottawa would need to add something to get Filatov from us. Lee is a quality defensive prospect with upside, but Filatov's upside can be massive. There'd have to be something else added.

Brian Lee is also out indefinitely with a strange illness. This makes a trade more unlikely right now. Many Sens fans are not satisfied with his current play.

According to Eric Smith the rumored deal is Filatov  + Crunchie for Lee, Ryan Shannon and a 2nd round pick. Shannon is intriguing, but I'd still wonder if we could get a better package. I'd prefer to move Filatov for a guy that will immediately help this team. Preferably a blueliner with more potential/ status than Brian Lee.

I'd hope we'd shop Filatov around a little more than this though, because I'd be very interested to see what other teams might be willing to offer for him. Hopefully this is a sign he's officially on the block.

I think the Islander, Panthers, Canadians, Maple Leafs, Thrashers, Hurricanes, Wild, Coyotes, and Predators would all have substantial interest in Filatov. Some of those teams have much more intriguing blueline options for us in my opinion. I'd hate to make a deal with Nashville, but if we could land a top blueliner, I'd consider it.

Debate. What do you think?

This would have felt great to win in the shootout. I want this Nashville streak to die. I felt good after Tyuts snapped a dirty backhander over Rinne, but just when it seems it is in control... the Preds squeak it out 4-3 in the shootout.

On the bright side our good play has also continued.

Bill Davidge made a comment toward the end of the game that I thought did sum up our job tonight, "There weren't any passengers on this train." A back to back set with travel is certainly not easy, but we did come to play. We forechecked well and played pretty strong defense. Nashville owned us during the last of the first period, but htat rest of the game was at worst, even. Maybe... just maybe, we are coming out of our slump.

Nash - Vermette - Huselius played a strong game tonight. Nash cashing in on a breakaway and making a sweet pass to Kris Russell highlighted the night. We've needed better play out of Nash. He needs a goal scoring tear. Vermette was really skating hard. I often go back and forth on two different attitudes 1. "Look at his effort tonight. He really wants it" and 2. "Why doesn't he skate like that all the time?"  . It's not just Vermette.

I thought 15-16-17 was good again tonight. I think the lines are the most balanced that they have been all year and we are get pretty decent play. Raffi potted another PP goal tonight to give him 10 on the year. If you would have told me that Raffi would be the third player to reach double digit goals this year... I'm not sure what I would have said. He's played pretty strong. He is playing more straight lines and has cut back on the cute passes... works for me.

Who else could breathe again when Hejda came back on the ice? With Klesla out, I'd be afraid to think about losing Hejda for a prolonged period of time. He is starting to play better. Commodore isn't helping.

Garon played another solid, but not spectacular game. I've gotten what I'd expect from a quality back-up. I was hoping he'd come up money in the shootout, but it just didn't happen tonight.

The officiating was pretty bad tonight all around. Missed penalty calls. Phantom penalty calls. Not good.

Mancrush: Kris Russell. Where has this guy come from. Finally TI Girl of HF fame can really be proud. Perhaps he is the newest beneficiary of the "Vyborny Scratch". It is the best stretch of hockey he has ever put together and it is the type of play he needs to be a regular NHL dman. I always feel comfortable with the puck on his stick.

Doghouse: Mike Commodore. He needs to skate. He feel a few times tonight and was beat by speed a few others. His 1st period intermission interview wasn't even good. He needs to do better.

Overall team effort was much better tonight, but I'd still like to see a little more fire. Thoughts? Comments? Fire Away!

When you team isn't playing well, there is one guy that can turn it around. A hot goaltender can carry a mediocre team through awesome stretches. Steve "Calder" Mason showed up tonight and played very well. A completely different goaltender from the last 5 or 6 games. He moved smartly, positionally strong. Not once did he look like his crease was on fire.

The Jackets shutout the Florida Panthers tonight 3-0 and they deserved it... a little bit. It wasn't a wonderful game, but it was an improvement. Lets turn this into a streak and get the excitement back in the Arena.

I thought the lines were okay tonight. I liked trying Derick Brassard with Dorse and Torres and bumping Pahlsson down to the fourth line. It makes the most sense to do this to try and get Brassard going and he finally got a goal. A skill goal too.

The major issue with the one line is still an issue. They give up numbers on the defensive end. It is our most consistent offender for odd man rushes. I'm not sure if it is an issue of our top players not busting it to get back or they are getting themselves in too deep and turnover the puck. Either way our best players can't be doing this.

Nash and Pahlsson were united in their brief PK stint tonight. It is a much better fit for Nash who likes to take risks. Im' glad coach was able to incorporate my suggestion (it might have been a line change coincidence tonight). Ideally I'd like Pahlsson - Nash, Vermette - Umberger, Murray - Chimera.

Jason Chimera keeps his magic touch going with another goal. He plays periods where you'd think he could be an All-Star, so we have to savor this.

A couple guys that I don't talk about a whole lot played really well tonight. Mark Methot and Jared Boll. Methot skated the puck out of the zone it seemed a half a dozen times. Boller really competed hard on the puck all night. During stretches it seemed we wouldn't win a puck battle, Boller hit the ice and did just that.

Mancrush: The Penalty Kill in the final 10 minutes. This could have easily sent the Nationwide Crowd to the surrounding hospitals. The kill was strong and even on the 5 on 3 limited most of the chances. If Florida scored there... I may have thrown something.

Doghouse: Mike Commodore he still looks out of shape and tentative. He takes over for Anton Stralman, who I thought played somewhat better tonight.

This game looked a lot better overall, but still is ways away from our potential. The second period was not strong and segments of the 3rd were not good.

Jason Chimera brought his game tonight and scored a goal and almost saved a game. In the final 20 seconds Chimmer appeared to score to tie the game. After a replay, the puck clearly went under the goal as the net rocked on its moorings. Rimer may still not understand this. It was clearly a 'no goal' and with that the hopes of a snapped streak disappeared.

If we won the game, it would have been a lift, but to tell the truth this was far from the game I expected tonight. I was expecting a playoff type intensity tonight. What we got was a lot of timid play and a lot of guys overlapping work. I think our bad defensive zone coverage has guys slipping into other guys' areas to make sure stuff is covered.

Rick Nash needs to play better. I site him at fault for Colorado's third and winning goal. We had a great chance in the offensive zone and 3 on 3 coming back. For some reason, Nash goes for an open ice hit on the puck carrier who was being covered by the left defender. This left a 2 on 1 and Colorado scored. 3-2 game over. To me it was a brainless, immature play. Nash needs to take the left side wing in the case. No exception.

Anton Stralman continued his awful play and I think we are seeing the real deal. A lot of players a confidence guys. If a pro athlete is not mentally tough, they are prone to long periods of bad play. It has officially gotten into his head. With the state of play in our defensive core, it is not good timing.

I'm not sure what the point of putting Nash - Vermette - Umberger together is if they aren't scoring goals and all end up -2 on the book.

Stating the obvious we are in a crappy spot right now. Confidence is low, players are pressing, players are trying to do too much, Columbus fans. We know this feeling, but the reality is this team is very capable of turning this around. It might take Steve Mason to steal a game for us. It might take Derick Brassard to find his scoring touch. It might take Mike Commodore to look like an NHL defender.

Ultimately we need to stay in the mix. Not taking care of business now, will make games down the stretch much more meaningful. I have confidence we will be able to add a quality player when we need to. I have confidence we will be able to improve our defense and transition game.

Mancrush of the Night: Jason Chimera. He had his motor going tonight.

Doghouse: Hitch. Until improvement is seen. Time to earn your money big guy.

Voracek cut his hair. Filatov has left. Commodore has come back into the lineup. canon  Which is to blame? I think it's looking like Filatov really added that wining element to the 3 minutes of ice time that he had. Maybe it is Voracek's hair cut. What do you think? Other variable?

Of all the blowouts that we have endured this year. This one sucks the most. Home ice, the Leafs aren't great, and following a quality game against the Blackhawks. We feel victim to some terrible turnovers and then more overall bad defense... a recurring theme. Keeping it short tonight. 6-2 Toronto.

The defense needs a change. The Tyutin-Stralman pairing has continued to fall downhill. I'm not sure with our current personnel what the solution is. The decline in Stralman's play has really made me concerned.

I actually thought Brassard-Voracek-Umberger looked nice to start the game tonight. Not long afterward, they end up being -3 players.

We played very well in the second period until the Blake goal. A beauty from Toronto. They picked us apart after that.

We were a dominating 5 on 5 team last year and have been anything, but this year. I'm not sure what the significant difference is between this year and last year.  Even our top line seems to be hemmed in the zone most nights during this slump.

The fourth line plays like we played last year. The only line that didn't get score on. Why this line creates the best offensive pressure isn't a surprise. They check, they pressure, and they fight for the puck.

This Leafs team will not make the playoffs and made us look silly. I wouldn't be surprised to see wide sweeping, line changes.

Doghouse : Hitch. I've finally put him here. He's too good of a coach to go through a period like this with no improvement. We are not good at the things he's supposedly good at. 5 on 5, defense, and PK. He's got to own it.

Comments? Suggested Changes? Solutions? Fire Away

This was a game that concerned me. It's was national television. It's against the best home team in the WC. We haven't played well. The Blackhawks have been on fire. A 4-3 Shootout loss doesn't feel like such a bitter pill.

I thought we played well the entire game. The Hawk loving VS color guy will be sure to come to the blog and tell me this "was a classic trap game" for the Blackhawks (was it John Ahlers?). Just like he said EVERY TIME the Blackhawks made a bad play. When they were playing well... well look at that skill. I was hoping for a nicely covered, highlight the positives of each team type of game. This guy honestly made me enjoy the game less.

Our team on ice played really well. Probably our best 5 on 5 game of the year. It looked a lot like our games last year. We limited chances (still gave up 2 breakaways) and got the puck deep and cycled pretty well.

This was a funny game for Kris Russell. He made a bad play on the PP that lead to a shorthanded goal to Versteeg. When Russell is out there with a forward on the point, I'm not comfortable. Tonight he tried to carry the puck deep... not a good call when your the only defensemen on the ice. On the flip side his rush rocket is the type of play that I've wanted for forever. The goals the last two games are ideal Kris Russell goals, the types of goals we expected from him. The healthy scratches hopefully will have the David Vyborny effect.

Steve Mason played a second strong night. He didn't give up any softies and he kept us in the game. That's his job. He was much calmer in the shootout. The infinite shootout (maybe the longest in team history). A big issue for him lately has been moving too much, opening up holes. 

Rick Nash always tries to bust out a few extra fancies on national TV. Some of them did look nice tonight. I'd rather him score two ugly goals.

Antoine Vermette has continued to put points on the scoreboard. He's nearly a point per game player and continues to go to the paint for goals. You have to love that. On the other hand I think he was on the ice for both powerplay goals against... leading to the Cannon's weekly.

Penalty Kill lashing. This has to change. We gave up 2 more tonight, that was the game. We killed about 38 of our first 40 penalties on the year... if we didn't we could be the worst penalty kill team in the league. I think this is partly due to Hejda and Commodore both struggling to come back from injury. I'd split the pairs. Go Pahlsson - Nash, Vermette - Chimera, give that a whirl.

Since the Doghouse, Pahlsson has played better game. The doghouse tends to have that affect on players. He did score a goal. A terribly weak one, but they all count the same.

Mancrush: Mathieu Roy looked good in his recall. He was +2 tonight and was skating a lot better than the beginning of the year.

Doghouse: Anton Stralman will take the nod of the second straight night. 3 Minor penalties tonight. The top PP unit has had a hard time getting the puck in. Again, more positives than negatives this year.

Pulling out a point in Chicago is a nice, especially considering our recent skid. Back home Thursday for the Leafs. Predictions? Fire Away!

Just like the team, for me it has been tough to write these reviews. One loss, not a big deal. Two losses, eh okay. Five, can I call in sick? We won games early in the year that we probably had no business winning, recently we've lost them. Overall, you can't get too concerned, teams go through these type of stretches... but you just can't wait for them to end. Tonight the Blue Jackets downed the Blues 5-2 partly due to R.J. Umberger and his first hat trick with the Blue Jackets.

The first 10 minutes were some of the best of the year. Passes were crisp, the high forward was back, and pressure was created around the net. We had two on the scoreboard It was perfect. Too perfect.

The story of this game could very well be a season ending knee injury to Rostislav Klesla. While reports have not hit the news yet, it is safe to say we won't be seeing Rusty again in 2009. He has played some pretty good hockey for us and I think has been the most consistent defensemen this year. Hitch said in the press conference that he was in for an MRI. This would indicate a knee injury as opposed to a broken bone... me and my medical degree can figure that out.

Someone who I haven't talk a lot about is Mike Bluden. You'd love to see him hit the scoreboard, because frankly to stick in the NHL he'll need to do that. When he's on the ice though, he's always back on defense, he's always working diagonally on the puck carrier. Just like he's supposed to. Given the issues that we've had recently, you appreciate this. His hit in the final two minutes gave me a pretty nice smile.

Nod to RJ for scoring the exact same goal two times (what a feat). One from Voracek, the other from Brassard. OH,  AND THE HATTIE. That line played well overall tonight and has meshed well since they've been put together. I think RJ is a good compliment to that line. RJ really scores in bunches. He has 7 goals in 3 games this year. It feels like a long time someone not named Nash got a hat trick. 4 points for RJ tonight, job well done.

Maybe the best game from Steve Mason in a month. I thought he was positionally strong and controlled his rebounds well. St. Louis didn't venture behind the net though. Someone wasn't doing their scouting report.

Vermette got the empty netter tonight. Thank goodness. This was the first final thirty seconds in a long time that I either wasn't having a heart attack or really really annoyed.

Mancrush of the Night : Kris Russell. (Sorry R.J.) Just watching him makes you realize who little our defense skates. We absolutely need players like Hejda and Commodore to skate the puck out of the zone. I can't count the number of times I've seen Commie try to make a pass from a defensive faceoff dot, to the opposition blueline. He sits back like he's going to sharpshoot something. Let's just skate it out of the zone. It was great to see Russell hit the scoreboard. A sweet wrister at that (the type of goal we've expected from him for 3 years). His skating the puck out also led to the second goal.

Doghouse for Anton Stralman tonight. I thought he looked very shaky on his feet tonight. He was beat a few times. He wasn't strong in the corners and lost a couple edges. He's been a much better positive overall this year, but given the injury to Klesla, we will need more quality minutes from him.

I went back and forth... R.J. or Russ for Mancrush tonight. Write in Vote. If RJ didn't have the weak empty netter to finish the hattie... he'd have the spot. I don't think I need to remind you of what Al Iafrate thinks of empty netters.

Feel good? Fire Away!

Watching a 3-1 lead evaporate in a couple minutes and losing 4-3 in the shootout doesn't feel good. The crowd was loud and white. We have to continue to play a regular game down the stretch of the games. I look to the Coach. We need some solutions. We've had some consistent problems and we need some progress. The issues tonight are the same issues during this stretch. Let's go Coach

At times it was like looking in a mirror. Both teams have a similar attitude. When things aren't going well, they bend. They feed off of confidence, but are not mentally tough. If these teams want to make noise in the Western Conference, they'll need to figure this out. Come playoff time teams like Detroit and Chicago will be there and mentally ready for it.

The first period drew positive reports from the TV crew, but I thought it was terrible (for everybody outside of Mason). Calgary dominated us. We created zero offense. One of my biggest issues is that I'm not sure who we can give up so many high quality scoring chances, during times we are not creating any offense. What I mean by that is, we are giving up 2-1s and 3-2s... I ask myself how when there is nothing going on in the offensive zone can we give up numbers coming back?

It wasn't until we hit the twine that we actually started to look okay. This is the benefit of the great PP, but we need to be grow out of this stage. We have to be mentally tougher.

I was really intending on ripping Smamy Pahlsson's play again. Hitch matched our top line against Calgary's all night. What's Pahlsson for? Why has our PK gone down hill? It is not a coincidence that Pahlsson was one of our best players for the first month of the year. I noticed in the middle of the second he didn't take the faceoff. He might still be injured. If he's injured let him heal, it's a long season and he's not contributing much right now.

I thought Jason Chimera played a strong game, until the last 10 minutes (in which his line gave up two late ones). The plays start the same. Voracek checking a player to the right of Mason. Puck behind the net, puck moved to slot. That is the defenders and the centers spot. Not Chimmers though. So lets get to his positives tonight.

He was solid in all 3 zones and used his speed to create some offense. He is also (one of the few) who consistently gets the puck deep. When you watch our guys fumble it at the blueline or turn it over 5 feet in, you grow to appreciate a guy who does the smart play every time. He has two moves... the go really fast, turn and look for a trailer (only on the right wing) and if no trailer dump it deep OR the straight dump and forecheck. You get what you get with Chimmer and that's why I can appreciate him.

Umberger had a couple chances to win the game tonight. It just didn't happen. Olympics RJ. Olympics. Need to finish.

Mason again was abused on two behind the net plays. I was surprised to see Calgary not go there on the PP, but it will soon be a regular thing. Otherwise Mason played pretty good. He saved us in the first. The shootout wasn't very good. I think that is a good indicator of his confidence right now.

Nice to see Methot get a goal. I still remember the laser that was disallowed by a Jared Boll fight.

Mancrush: I'll give the nod to the fourth line. It was again strong. It has everything to do with MacKenzie at center. I'd let Picard take a turn over Blunden, who hasn't shown as much recently. The fourth liners have done everything you could ask for. Boll scoring has been a bonus. They've done their job and I don't think they have been scored against in a few games. (EDIT: They gave one up in Montreal)

Doghouse (formerly known as whipping boy): Sammy Pahlsson's again. Hitch matched our top line against Calgary's all night ( he did match up Pahlsson in OT... which didn't go well for us). What's Pahlsson for? Why has our PK gone down hill? It is not a coincidence that Pahlsson was one of our best players for the first month of the year. I noticed in the middle of the second he didn't take the faceoff. He might still be injured. If he's injured let him heal, it's a long season and he's not contributing much right now.

It drives me crazy that Nashville has passed us in the standings. Look at the two rosters. They get by ONLY on hardwork. St. Louis and Chicago are right around the corner so we will get a real good look at our Central Division. Comments? Fire Away!

The good news... this ends the longest road trip of the year. The bad news... this team needs a serious confidence boost. The last three minutes of this 2-1 loss screamed that to me. We couldn't move the puck up the ice. We could barely move the puck to the red line. The team is frazzled and THINKING. Most athletes at any level would tell you that they do their best when they aren't thinking. We aren't just thinking, it seems our guys are each thinking different things.

We did play better tonight, but a win would have felt very nice. For me finishing the roadie 2-2-1 would have felt much better than 1-3-1.

Steve Mason played a better game, but got burned on the now widely reported weakness. He has been pathetic on behind the net plays this year. This is certainly going to be on the mind of any opponent we have. Mase absolutely needs to figure this out or he get burned time and time again. These are the woes of the sophomore year.

Looking at the box score, Jan Hejda had less than 17 minutes of ice time(which actually played him #6 out of our 6 dmen). He has been trending around 24 minutes. He was in the box during the PK two times, but I wonder if he was nursing something tonight.

The passing from Tyutin and Commodore were terrible tonight. Part of our woes is due to the lack of high quality defensive play. It is not realistic to think you'll get the best from all your guys, all the time. Right now, nobody is going at their best.

The two guys that did stand out to me were Rick Nash and Jakub Voracek. I thought they did play strong games and made very strong offensive zone moves tonight. Voracek continues to impress me with his board play. We need more goals out of him though. A nod to Huselius who keeps putting the puck in the net. That's his job. He's been pretty good since returning from injury.

We need a big confidence boost. We need a couple guys to step up in a big way. We need 5 on 5 offense. We were dominating 5 on 5 last year, we need to get some of that back. The powerplay has saved us all year long. We'd be in the WC cellar if we had a powerplay like last year.

Mancrush of the Night: I'll give the nod the Juice, although I'd prefer to leave it blank. He skated well and kept his scoring streak alive. He hit the double digit plateau tonight. He had 21 all of last year. He could easily hit 30 for us this year.

Whipping Boy: Fedor Tyutin. I like Tyuts, but we need a lot more from him. We need him to be a #2, but he has played more like a #5. I know he expects a lot more out of himself, but his passing tonight was not good and he had more than a couple bad turnovers.

So do we really ask "Who won the CBJ/Ott trade"..... on a CBJ broadcast..... and believe that it is accurate? I found this amusing television.

Hit the Comment. Favorite Thanksgiving Side Dish. Go!

The picture may be the only entertaining element to this game recap tonight. The Jackets fell to the Canadiens 5 to 3 on a combined effort of poor defense and a forgotten gameplan.

For the last two weeks, our play has really had me thinking. We have basically the same lineup as last year where we lived by the moniker "tough to play against." If anything moves like Pahlsson over Malhotra should have made us tougher to play against. It is not as if we have an influx of soft skill players, I'm not sure why we have been so bad from the red line back. We have been up more goals, more breakaway and than I can recall us ever having. There literally used to be games (last year) where you'd wonder if the other team could score two goals against us. Everything was that cohesive.

This should be fixed. I'm concerned that we have seen little improvement in these regards because this has been the story of the team since opening night. At least we won't be complacent.

Our first period was good. Our first periods have been pretty good this year, but what followed was not pretty.

Antoine Vermette played a solid, but yet uneven game. He potted two goals, which sure makes me excited about this center ice position we have discovered, but there were still defensive lapses. It was the best game out of the top line in a few games, so I guess that is a positive.

The second line has struggled to create consistent offense for us this year and I'm not sure what happened to the third line. For the first 3 weeks of the year the Samuel Pahlsson line was constantly creating offense and cycling. Dominating their shifts. Now they aren't drawing the opponents best players AND they are getting scored on.

There is just a weird feeling to this team... Our on the fly defensive changes seem more unorganized than years past. After the first period we abandon the game plan and stop hitting. Our goaltending is not great right now, but it is hard to judge since our team defense has been so bad. We give up so many odd man rushes. I can't comprehend it.

Mancrush of the Game: Anton Stralman, he again proves his worth on the powerplay after potting another. That right handed shot has done wonders for us. He is nice and calm with the puck, but he seems to get beat wide regularly.

Whipping Boy of the Game: Samuel Pahlsson. What are you for? That might seem harsh, but he is an NHL vet, who signed a big contract to shutdown the best players on the other team. That is obviously not happening. The third line hasn't had a goal in easily 10 games. This guy has to figure it out. Derek MacKenzie has done the same thing and makes a fraction of the dough.

Back to back disasters. What do you think the issue is with our tissue soft defense? Fire Away!

In the first 10 minutes this looked like it would be a picture perfect road game. Two goals from the fourth line. The Rangers scrambling and calling a timeout. Life was good.

There was a 30 minute stretch between the 1st and 2nd that was some of the worst Jackets hockey I've ever seen. We made a struggling offensive team look like the Red Army. Our defense was terrible. Nash was -4. Hejda, Stralman, and Commodore looked terrible. Even Yahoo declared the game a final score with 18 minutes left in the 3rd period. I would not want to be in the visitors dressing room after this one.

If you could say one thing. We make our losses count. I'm not sure if I'd rather have two 1 goal losses or one 4 goal loss. This feels miserable, but at the end of the night. It is just one game.

A couple weeks ago, I annointed our blueline, the best defensive group we've ever iced. Yikes, tonight. Why we have been so bad on some nights is beyond me. I think the lack of a top shelf puck mover is the main issue. We have 4 defenders that regularly prefer to chip the puck than skate with it. Under constant pressure, this is not a good thing.

It was nice to see us somewhat stop the bleeding and score a couple goals toward the end. This may speak more to the difference between the Rangers and the Red Wings. MacKenzie, Boll, Huselius, and Voracek on the tallies tonight.

No reason to comment on the goaltending tonight. It wasn't good, but they didn't get much help.

Mancrush of the Night: It has to go to Jared Boll tonight. The fourth line chipped in two. He was +3 with a goal and an assist with 2 fights. He definitely cared.

Whipping Boys: The Blueline. While I thought some guys played especially terrible, they were all pretty bad. The only pair that had any chemistry is Tyutin and Stralman and they haven't been good in their own zone consistently. This is Hitch's problem to fix. He's had plenty of time. We need to see improvement here.

Barf. Fire Away!

The ice must have been about 2 inches lower in the CBJ defensive zone in the third period tonight. The amount of penalties we took in the third could lead to a Zambroni driver nightmare. Hopefully they will be able to reshape the Sommet Center before their next home game. Skating from one end to the other end has never been more of a literal uphill climb.

Most coaches look at the calendar as chunks of 10 games segments our first segment we were 6-4 earning 12 points. We  followed that with 6-2-2 earning 14 points. At this pace we would eclipse the 100 point mark for the first time in franchise history. Tonight we began our next chunk of 10 with a point. Losing to Nashville sucks, but getting a point feels good tonight. The final score being 4-3.

I'm not sure how Nashville does it, but outside of a couple of blueline pieces they are to win games with a roster of half AHLers.

Steve Mason played a pretty solid game tonight. He made at least 3 dazzling game saving stops in the third. That's what we have come to expect from Mase. That's what he needs to do to become a top 5 goalie in the league. He hasn't been too strong on SO this year... he'll need to get some pointers from Garon the Shootout Wall. We wouldn't have got a point without Mase.

There were a ton of great scoring chances/ defensive breakdowns in this game. Trotz and Hitch must have wanted to strangle themselves. We have to tighten our D.

It is great to see R.J. Umberger get two tallies tonight. When this guy gets hot, he's the best player on the team. Getting consistent offense from the Umberger - Brassard combo has been a bright spot. Really good hand eye coordination from R.J. on both goals.

A booth review on the road that overturns a borderline call in our favor? That might be the first one in 3 or 4 years.

Martin Erat scored..... his second of the year. He has 5 points in 18 games... and Nashville signed him to a 7 year 4.5 million dollar deal last year. I don't wish injury on my opponents. I wish terrible cap management and terrible deals.

It may have been a product of a ton of penalties tonight, but Hejda played 25+ minutes in regulation (not including OT) tonight. I've seen his time climb up. Come playoffs he might be a half timer. Curiously Methot had the third most ice time among defenders. Hitch must hve been pretty happy with his play.

Our Powerplay is definitely improved from last year. By far the greatest blessing for this team. Getting another one tonight off the stick of Stralman felt like the type of goal we never got last year. It tied the game heading into the third and gave us a much needed boost.

The Powerplay during the last minute of regulation earns a special mention for maybe being the most exciting minute of Jackets hockey... ever. Too bad we didn't net one.

My major concern is the pattern of terrible penalty killing. Now I did not expect us to maintain the Hall of Fame pace that we had early in the year, but we seem to get burned once or twice every game. This has to stop to stay competitive. Special Teams play truly is the mark of a winning team. If you win on special teams, you often will win the game. I'm not sure what the issue is with the PK, but we have the players that should make a top unit. This is not a good combination when you take as many penalties as we did tonight. The unit did come up big in the 3rd, and I must acknowledge that.

Mancrush of the Night: I'm overlooking a couple bad plays tonight, but I really liked what I saw from Derick Brassard. I'm putting him here tonight. He had jump create some good offense all night.

Whipping Boy of the Night: Wade Belak has been put onto my permanent hit list. That shot on Boll was chicken and stupid. Boll made a clean hit, albeit slightly late. Belak looks at him and slashes between the legs from behind. That has to be a 5 game suspension at least.

Points in 9 of our last 10 games with a busy week ahead. Mon @NYR, Tues @ MON, Thurs @ Ottawa, Sat v. Calgary. Happy Thanksgiving, eh? Fire Away!

Mike was able to weigh in with his very solid opinion on the Filatov situation and I thought I'd weigh in with a post of my own. There will be similarities from Mike's but also differences. We are not clones. In the honor of SNL, Mike you ignorant slut.

Not a big deal.

Wait what is that you say? You have got to be kidding me. Fire Hitch. Fire Howson.

It's not a big deal.

You are short sighted and this will hurt Filatov in the team in the long run.

It's not a big deal.

Here are the facts. Nikita Filatov is not the difference between playoffs and no playoffs. Cup run vs. no cup run. For all intents and purposes he is a non-factor for us this year.

But what about Tavaras, Stamkos, Kane,..... Filatov has to be better than them right?

It could be argued, but sure Filatov is better than those players, but tell me which of the Islanders, Lightning, Thrashers, are better than the Blue Jackets.

Filatov is not one of the best 4 wings on the team. He might not even be one of the best 6, so why play him as if he is such. Tavaras is one of the best wings. Stamkos is the 2nd best center, as is Kane. I will admit, if Filatov were on another team, a lesser team, the 03-04 Blue Jackets, he would be playing 13-15 a night. He would be one of the best young players in the league.

So why is this not a big deal?

Filatov is the same person he was yesterday. The same player with the same skills. The positive is that he has trade value. Really decent trade value. His trade value is the same as if he played here the rest of the year. For the next 2-3 years Filatov's value to this team might only be trade value. We can move him at the deadline. Move him tomorrow. Move him at the draft. The value does not diminish. Zherdev's value pretty much bottomed out and we were able to get Fedor Tyutin. Filatov's value would be far past this. If we move him at the deadline for Tomas Kaberle, who would be complaining? If we flipped him to the Islanders for a 1st round pick +, who would be complaining? His value is still the same.

So the heat on Hitch?

I can sense it, and I'm not going to defend Hitch, I'm not sure what his relationship with Filatov is, but I will not endorse him sacrificing wins for Filatov's development. No way. This is how Hitch sees it, the hardest part for Hitch is though is that he wants to WIN EVERY SHIFT. We are better off at our stage in our development to have this mentality. If we were say in the San Jose world of development, you can run Filatov out there because, hey you know we are in the playoffs. If you are in the New York Islanders world of development you can run Filatov out there because, hey lets sell some jerseys.

Heat on Howson?

Maybe some, I think he has been overly hesitant to not include Filatov in trade talks. He's always mentioned him with the untouchables. He needed to see this as a possible scenario down the pike. Half of CBJ faithful did. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Howson feels differently than I suspect.

Heat on Filatov?

1)He's 19 years old and living far away from home, earning 800K a year, getting about 6 minutes of ice and contributing 0 to the team. He could do this or

2)He could be 19 years old, be a local celeb, earn 3-4 million a year, get 20 minutes of ice time, and be a heart and soul player on a team.

Truth be told I'd have a hard time turning down option 2.

Filatov wants to be a NA hockey player and he likely will be better next camp than he is right now. Even if he is on the team at that time.

Why isn't Filatov not in the AHL? Because (assumption) Filatov has already made it crystal clear it is NHL or Russia. This ultimately is not the type of attitude we need right now. He said in camp getting minutes shouldn't be an issue because he knows what he can do. He hasn't shown it. Not in practice either. No player can dictate how much time they should be playing. No player is bigger than the team and no player is bigger than winning.

He can be a good player for us next year or he can help acquire a good player for us. Either way I'm happy. Outside of a few, I look at players like real estate. Sell high.

Ultimately I'm not mad at any party in this case. It is a situation that we will move past. It is not a big deal.

While I believe our overall play has slipped a few notches from our best last year, one area of our game has definitely improved. The powerplay. The powerplay earned us a point tonight going  2 for 4. It makes me wonder what our team would have been able to do if we had this powerplay last year. The unit deserves a big credit for the 3-2 shootout win tonight.

Games against the Oil always seem to be frustrating for me. There are stretches where we look like we outclass them and you wonder how the game is so close, but the next thing you know we rattle off 5 minutes of being dominated.

Dustin Penner is much better than I have seen before. This year could be a major breakout for him.

Mathieu Garon was again very solid for us. The only goals were scored on the powerplay. He made many big saves that could otherwise could have killed out momentum. I've been very happy with his play of late.Two shootout wins in a row. That's stealing points.

Antoine Vermette has been a pretty solid player for us this year and he has done it really quietly. He's putting up the best offensive numbers of his career. His tip on the Powerplay tonight was stellar.

I love the Anton Strahlman shot. Simply having a right handed shot makes our unit so much more threatening.

I missed the start of this one and I missed 2 fights. Was it a little chippy tonight? I didn't get that feeling when I picked it up in the 2nd. Kudos to the Crunchies, Sesito and Blunden for throwing down.I like Sesito and I am torn on his upside. It all comes down his skating for me. I like his game and overall I liked him tonight even though he played less than 5 minutes.

We really only played 3 lines tonight. I know Pahlsson being out kind of makes us do a makeshift third line (which I think affects ice time). Hopefully he comes back soon.

Mancrush of the Night: The Powerplay. It sure is nice to have a unit that can get a big goal when you need one.

Whipping Boy of the Night: It has to be me tonight. I missed the first period for child birthing classes. I didn't even check the score. I'm not sure that constitutes carrying the flag.

Last thought... that shot from Jake Voracek in the SO was pretty sweet. Lets do it in a game Jake. Props to Tyuts as well.

11-6-2 and we really having started to play well. I'll take it. Comments? Fire Away!

Okay things were better. Outside of giving up double digit goals I think that would have been true tonight. I didn't think we played that great, we still have a long way to go. A win feels good even thought it needed to be in a shootout. Tonight the Jackets down the Ducks 3-2.

To be honest I'm surprised by the Ducks struggles early this year. Last year down the stretch after the deadline they rebuilt, reloaded and played great hockey. I think the thinning d and the loss of Beauchemin hurts, but I was expecting much better things from Anaheim. Bottom in the Western Conference, I'm shocked honestly.

To open us up tonight it looked like our guys were nervous. No doubt laying another egg in front of the home crowd would rack the nerves. Anaheim knew this, they likely made a point of coming out of the gates on fire. After killing a couple early key penalties we definitely played a better game. The end of the first was very good, everything else was decent.

Welcome back Kristian Huselius the hockey player. He looked very good tonight, back to what we need from him. Easily his best game this season. He holds the puck on a string and creates space for his teammates with the puck. Cashing in on the powerplay and connecting in the shootout was all icing on the cake. A great game from the Juice tonight.

Big props to Mathieu Garon. After your starting goalie gives up 8, you want to stop the bleeding. Considering Mason's somewhat erratic play this year, it is a great feeling to have a capable backup that can play. Garon might be playing for the

I want a Cannon reader to get a nice video capture of the Rick Nash leg lift shootout  winning decoy/near whipeout. A big night from 61 tonight. He quietly is putting together 100 point type of numbers. With good health he will shatter all team records this year.

If anyone has Klesla's injury statistics this year I'd also be interested in looking at those. That has to be at least the 5th trainer visit. He's missed 0 games. 0 periods I think. Rusty needs to take care of himself.

Mancrush of the Night: Mathieu Garon. Outside of one game, he's been stellar this year. It certainly takes the pressure off of Mase.

Whipping Boy tonight needs to be Derick Brassard. We need more out of him, it is that simple. He's the type of player that if he isn't contributing offensively then he isn't contributing. His turnover on the second goal was terrible.  Hitch is pulling his ice time back and it is the right call. We need old Derick back.

We bounce back tonight. We absolutely need this win. The theatrics are good tonight too. It builds some positive, fun.

Jackets fans, we played a decent 60 minutes. Happy? Thoughts? Dissatisfied? Fire Away!

Last year in our first trip to the playoffs I made the haul up to Detroit. As luck would have it Clay Hall and Anthony Rothman stopped me for an interview. They wanted to know the keys to the game... I said 1. Need to have a strong forecheck to put pressure on their d  2. Score early. These keys certainly did not happen in that serious... they did not happen tonight. If you didn't see the game or see a box score... let's just say we lost by more than 5 goals...

This game could have easily blended into last years playoff series. Well on second thought, it was much worse. The Wings weathered all of our scoring chances, went down the ice and practically scored at will. Nice puck luck, bad goaltending, d-zone turnovers. They scored on all of them tonight and made us look silly. I sat watching, hoping the game would end and hoping we wouldn't give up any more goals. I'm sure the players felt the same way.

Not one, but two of our players were hit with slapshots in the head... that has to sum up the night.

I'll get it out of the way early. Steve Mason was not good. I'm not sure if there is an explanation for his inconsistency this season, but it has to be unsettling. You can see the difference in team play when they are completely confident in the goaltending. When you give up 8 goals in a game... You didn't do well, in fact you flat out sucked.

The Red Wings do things that it seems no other teams do. Little things. Little spins, little flip passes toward the goal, and they always seem to find one-timers on the rush. Regardless of their personnel they always seem to play like this. Not to much superior puck possession and board play.Their special-magic white jerseys also disguise what would look to the naked eye as penalties. The non-goalie interference call isn't even worth arguing since we got destroyed.

The Big Plus Jan Hejda and the top line were not good tonight against Datysuk. I know with Huselius is out of the lineup, but our top line has been spotty in shutdown duty. To have success in the playoffs... this HAS to improve.

Mancrush of the Night: I'll pick out Klesla tonight. Sure, the defense was terrible and he wasn't good, but the dude keeps putting his face in front of slapshots. He has seriously large gonads. He's been in a heap after blocking a shot for three games straight. Somehow Hejda was -3 and Klesla was 0 and they were paired together...

Whipping Boy tonight... Let's just go with the team. The got shaken and rattled early and the Wings went for blood and got it.

I'm sure you have them... comments? Dare I say, Fire Away!

Whenever you are facing a team that is on a losing tear, especially as long as the Canes, you are going to be in for a fight. Carolina wants nothing more than to end the embarrassment and put it behind them and their opponents need to be ready. The Canes will break out of their streak against someone, that was my fear tonight. The first 2 period were examples of great hockey from Carolina and great hockey from Steve Mason.

3 quick minutes to open the third period potted us with 3 quick goals, a lead, and chili. This effort lead to our 3-2 win tonight.

When I looked at our d pairs tonight, I thought to myself this could be the best defense the Jackets have EVER iced. You could put each pair on the ice with little concern. Any one of those pairs could have been the top pair on a Jackets team of yesteryear. We still lack the top pair, offensive guy, but in my opinion tonight we played 5 top four defenders.

The top line honors of the night had to be the 4th line. Filatov was the engine that set it going. His speed, offensive instincts and defensive sacrifice stood out. He was the most visible Jacket tonight. Hopefully it is a sign of things to come. I thought MacKenzie had a mediocre game. He made some bad turnovers and wasn't completely solid in the defensive zone. Overall I like his energy and this tenacity and I would like to see him stick over our 4th line options.

Boll and Dorsett both played well tonight and directly contributed to goals. Boller got his first one of the year. It reminded me of his first ever NHL goal... a goal that after I saw it, I anointed him with the "potential 20 goal scorer tag". Turns out he's got a cute hockey goal in him every 3 years.

Hopefully Cam Ward is okay and we never got a good update. His trip to the bench looked really bad. He might have been a little freaked out not be able to see the wound, assuming the worst. Hopefully he's okay.

Rick Nash made a great individual effort and scored a beauty. He capped the 3 goals and the momentum was pouring on the Canes. At the time it felt like a dagger, but it ended up being the game winner. It was a careless d zone turnover and Nasher made no mistake.

Now we had yet another final 10 minute breath-holding competition. I don't get it. I suggest a change. Our players compete to the opponent's blueline and dump in. 30 second changes and they go right off. Can't we at least send in one forechecker on these dumps? Put a little pressure on them rather than give them free reign to come and make a dump into our zone and send three forecheckers. This is an incredible stress on our d. I want us to send one forechecker deep. Cause some havoc, if not bust it to the bench and get their change. The way we were playing after the 3rd goal (until the Torres penalty) is how you want to finish games. Carolina was on their heels. We kept attacking.

Watching the game, I felt we got destroyed in faceoffs. According to the stats we lost 32 and won 29. I guess we didn't win the "big ones" .

Mancrush of the Night : It has to be #1 tonight. He made some big saves in the 1st and 2nd. If the game becomes 2-0, I'm not sure we win it tonight. Steve Mason has played four solid games in a row after 4 bad ones. His assist was actually a really good play. The d had a guy get loose, but Mase cleared the puck out before there was any threat.  Let's keep it going.

Whipping Boy tonight is the Cameraman for me. Was it just me or were we panned out far the entire night? I like to a little more of the screen filled up with hockey rather than seeing about 8 rows of fans. Maybe I was just in a strange mood when I was watching it tonight. Since Cannon whipping boy status has recently had a great slumpbusting effect, I'm going to put Derick Brassard here tonight. We need 08-09 Brassard back. He created 5 on 5 offense. He did make a sweet corss ice pass to Torres tonight, but we need more.

November 7th and still in first place in the division. Pinch Me. Do you need a pinch too? We haven't even started to play well. Fire Away! Hit the comments.

Winning ugly is still winning. The last half of this one looked like a cougar on a one-legged rabbit. Fortunately off of a few fortunate bounces tonight the Jackets escape Atlanta with a 4-3 win. This is probably the best I've ever seen the Thrashers. With Kovalchuk out of the lineup up they still played a strong game on the strength of their blueline which is very good.

On the Jackets side of things the first period was awesome. It is exactly what you would want out of a road period. The kids Voracek and Brassard earned the tallies. The Thrashers came back strong after each deficit. Fortunately two tap in goals off the stick of Cy Young candidate Raffi Torres (he's 8-1) this year.

The 3rd Period prevent defense must come to a stop. Simply waiting for the other team to get scoring chances is not good hockey. It will lose more often than not and we need to figure out how to close out games. The consistency of this problem makes me take a look at the coaching side of things. I'll wait a bit before I throw a tantrum, but it might be coming soon. This was the second leg to a back to back, which does suck out the energy, but still, it's a consistent problem.

The Jan Hejda horse was completely ridden tonight. He seemed to be on the ice all night. Much of that was due to us taking many penalties. He'll probably feel it after this one, he'll get back to game shape quickly.

Voracek continues his great play. Don't look now but he has 12 points in 15 games. He's going to leave his rookie year in the dust. Imagine what kind of player he will be in two years. He could be better than Nash... yikes.

I liked what Derek MacKenzie brought to the table tonight. I liked him more than Blunden and Murray. I wouldn't be opposed to giving him a real shot as our 4th line center. His speed and defense is pretty nice. He made a great play on a turnover tonight that turned into Raffi's first tap in.

The disappearing act of the offense in the final two periods is concerning.

The Mancrush tonight is Mathieu Garon. He made the saves he needed to. I thought the Kubina PP goal was soft, but his overall play tonight was good enough to win. Great work on his part tonight.

The Whipping Boys are the forwards who took 5 minor penalties tonight. In back to back nights we were short on powerplay chances. This means to me that we aren't working hard enough in the offensive zone. A lot of the penalties that we took tonight were of the weaker variety. We need to be working.

It wasn't long ago, that a second game of a back to back was a gift if a point was earned. Times have changed. It wasn't a great 60 minute effort tonight, but we escape with the win.

Comments, Thoughts? Fire Away!

Sometimes 3-2 losses don't taste too bad. When we compete at a high level against the best teams in the league, I'll never be disappointed.  The Jackets fell in a shootout to the Sharks (who have won both of our encounters this year), but the overall play left me feeling content. I thought we played a complete, well rounded game. The only glitch in the game was the beginning of play in the third that I thought was carried by the Sharks, but we finished strong down the stretch

The play of the Nash - Vermette - Umberger line was solid tonight. All night they were matched against the Thornton line and played well. It almost seemed as if these lines duked it out. One shift went to the Sharks, the next to the Jackets. Vermette and Nash continue to be strong 5 on 5. I'd love to see this pair stick for a while. This takes the pressure off of Brassard and allow him to solidify a 2nd line. The creativity and chemistry of Nash and Vermette has been a sight.

1 for 1 on the powerplay tonight. It might have been the best powerplay in Blue Jackets history. The Cannon has to do a major cap nod to Rob Blake. Dude was jacked up in the corner and he drug himself to the front of the net. He had to play out about another 45 seconds of our powerplay that ended up in their net off the stick of Nash. A lesser man would have stayed crumpled in the corner and waited for a whistle. The puck movement may have been highlighted by the fact it was basically a 5 on 3, but I'll take it. Wish we could have drawn more penalties tonight.

Lets just say Jared Boll was visible tonight. I still don't think he is an NHL player, but he was game tonight. 2 fights, one drawn penalty, and one missed check into our bench. He got the crowd jazzed. I'm not sure what took the refs on the second fight so long to break it up. Boller could barely get his gloves off and balance. The incident led to our goal.

Derek Dorsett filled in at center tonight after Blunden's injury and didn't look out of place. The guy is a glue guy. He, Filatov, and Torres played a pretty decent game.

Voracek continues his strong, beastly play. He was more physical tonight than I can remember seeing. That's good news. I'd love to see him add that element to his game. It is the missing piece right now.

Tyutin and Stralman have consistently been a strong pair for us this year. Tyutin's slap-pass to Chimera got us on the board tonight. Offense from the backend is a must. This may be the best offensive pair the Jackets have ever put together. Neither guy will kill you in their own zone and they can get pucks through.

A major welcome back to Jan Hejda. Notice we didn't allow 5 goal tonight. That's the Hejda effect. He was positionally strong as always and he didn't look out of shape. Right where he left off.

Steve Mason continues a mini roll. He has eliminated the softies recently. It does wonders for his and the team's confidence. Now he needs to start stealing a couple games for us.

Mancrush of the Night goes to Jan Hejda. Welcome back 8. He got the loudest pop in the opening lineup (including Nash). Maybe Columbus hockey fans are really starting to catch on. Maybe we'll see a couple of Hejda #8 jerseys... umm probably not (he doesn't score goals!!!!OMG!!)

Whipping Boy takes a pass tonight. I thought we played a pretty solid game. I thought it was officiated pretty well. Sometimes it just doesn't pan out.

I took a friend who I introduced to true Blue Jackets hockey during Game 4 last year with an extra ticket. He has become a Jacket addict and like any good crack dealer I gave him another hit tonight. He's learning and loving it. So lesson #1 Jackets Fan, adopt a friend... give them crack... oh wait, no give them Blue Jackets hockey.

After a lackluster road trip we needed a big game to bounce back. We didn't get it. The Coyotes stung is in Nationwide at a score of 4-1. All semblance of offense that we've had recently was all dried up.

Either Phoenix played a great road game or we simply weren't able to get the juices going tonight. I'm not sure what happened to our 5 on 5 play from last year, but it is something that needs to get fixed quickly. Outside of a couple of nice chances on the rush, we haven't been able to set up any offense from an offensive zone set-up. It was a terrible game in from the red line in tonight. Bad passing, no offense, nothing off of the cycle.

Credit Jason Labarbera tonight, he made the big saves.

It is difficult to find good or bad play in this one tonight, it was all sort of blah. I thought Vermette and Voracek were some of our strongest forwards. Umberger, Nash and Huselius have been invisible 5 on 5 in the past 5 games or so. We need these guys to score regularly.

After Phoenix's second goal, I just had a bad feeling. We didn't seem to have the legs tonight.

Derick Brassard had the lone tally tonight on the powerplay. He found loose change and didn't miss. I'm not sure where the 08-09 Brassard has gone. For the first 20 games last year, he was our best player... it wasn't even close. We need him to be effective 5 on 5, it's that simple.

I thought the overall defense was better, but it wasn't good enough.

What's the deal with all the undisciplined untimely penalties? It killed us tonight.

Credit to Rusty Klesla for putting his face in front of another puck. The guy sacrifices the body every shift and then he seems to finish the games. Another stitch job tonight for 97. 

Mancrush of the Night: Jan Hejda. I'm not sure one guy makes this big of a difference, but I can't help but wonder. He upgrades our transition game and plays great defense.

Whipping Boy of the Night: Penalty Killing. We were on fire and unstoppable, but we seem to give up a goal a game lately, 3 in this one. This needs to get fixed quickly. I'd wonder if this is another Jan Hejda effect.

This was a bad one tonight, fellas. Fortunately we had a strong start to the year because we can withstand this rather that it bury us early. Comments, thoughts? Fire Away

Blowing leads is certainly not fun. It's a feeling I'm not quite used to... maybe it's because I'm not used to us having 2-3 goal leads. I like the fact that we score more goals... if only we could stop them. Thanks for Fedor Tyutin's awesome knucklepuck tonight or else I would have been a little angry tonight. We've now got a chance to go .500 on the road trip which wouldn't be all bad.

One of the major issues is defensive zone turnovers, the first period was especially bad tonight. That with inconsistent goaltending and no long automatic penalty killing has really made for a toxic cocktail on this roadie.

Perhaps one of the Cannon readers could back up this theory with stats, but I think our 2nd periods have been our best so far. For some reason in our history 2nd periods have been tough, but this year we have played really strong. This may have to do with carrying more of the play in the offensive zone and therefore making line changes easier and not getting trapped on the defensive end as much. It could also be a coincidence. It's something I've noticed so far. A big four spot certainly grabbed my attention tonight.

So the verdict on the line shakeup? I'm not sure. We scored a few flukey goals tonight. The Vermette line was definitely the best line for us tonight. He and Voracek are developing some pretty solid chemistry. Props to Jakub Voracek on his first ever multigoal game. He'll only get bigger and better. I don't think it will be too long till he gets some PK duty.

So we had a 1. Diving backhand sweeping goal  2. Pass that goes off a defender goal 3. Pinball into the slot easy goal 4. Off the post, goalie loses it tap in. 5. Knucklepuck. 6. Empty net roof job.  This is why the old adage: "just put the puck on net" works. None of these goals were pretty hockey goals.

In his first game back I thought Mike Commodore looked strong. He stablized our leaky d. The last couple games have shined a spot light on the missing Big Red and Big Plus. Weening Commie into his minutes is definitely the right call. It will be nice to get him in the top four soon... Methot hasn't looked too great . He just isn't shutown type. It does make you appreciate Hejda, who I take for granted.

Now here is the thing that I've always wondered. Why can't we seem to make that super line with Rick Nash? Is it a personnel issue? Is it a play style issue? Or is Nasher kind of difficult to play with? I'm just thinking out loud because it always seems to be a struggle. We all are wishing Brass steps up and take the reins, maybe it will just take time.

Mancrush of the Night : 93. He's played great hockey. He is going to leave his rookie year in the dust with the way he's been playing. I think he ran out of gas last year so hopefully with better conditioning, he'll keep this pace up all year. That empty net goal has set the kid on fire

Whipping Boy(s) of the Night : Nash and Mason. We need better out of these guys. Nash has been on the ice for probably around 7 or 8 goals on the road trip including three tonight. Overall I think his play has been more lacksidasical. We need better out of him. Mason needs quick with the softies and make a big one every once in a while. That's what the top goalies in the league do. That's what he wants to be. That's what he can be.

Only Rick Nash could be a whipping boy on a two goal night, eh?

Los Angeles tomorrow tonight? How do you feel?

You can't blow 3 goal leads. You can't waste 4 road goals and come away empty handed. From the red line back this was the sloppiest I've seen us in a long time. Hitchcock cannot be happy with this road trip so far. I know he likely will rip a new one. The first half of the second period we played amazing. The second half was a trainwreck. Did I say Hitch will be irate? Yup. He'll be very very angry.

Hemsky, Penner, and Gagner were really good tonight with the Oil. Our swiss cheese defense gave them plenty of room to make those tic-tac passes. This was the Oils only line tonight

Some positives...

It was great to see a line juggle instantly pay dividends. I thought the Huselius - Vermette - Voracek line looked very good. I think this also mixes our finesse players. Huselius and Brassard together on the same line has played light this year. Vermette, Umberger and Voracek are all good diggers, but weren't creating some nights. I like this switch and I think it makes us more dangerous and defensively responsible in our top 6.

Huselius played well tonight to follow us one of his worst performances.

Raffi Torres has the net nose. Add another PP goal to his total. He might bust the 15 goal prediction I had for him. He does have enough skill to hit 20, but I won't count on it. The bonehead minor at the end of the game... not what we needed.

I thought Filatov looked a lot more Hitch-like tonight, but that didn't lead to an increase in ice. He did make a bad turnover in his own zone tonight, but he looked like he took the teachings to heart. Battling for loose pucks (with varying degrees of effectiveness). He needs 10-15 more pounds on him.

Jakub Voracek played this best game of the season. His physicality and vision were great. His play lead directly to two of our goals tonight.

Jason Chimera continues his annual month long wonder hands period. The period that makes us wonder why he doesn't score 30 goals in a season. This guys is a total package of offensive skills. The package is usually disjointed. A great pass by Sammy Pahlsson to set that up.

The negatives... I'll keep it brief.

Team defense was terrible tonight. A lot of loose pucks in the high slot. A lot of cross ice passes. We looked lost defenisvely on the rush. The good news is Hitch can fix this and a lot of it likely has to do with personnel playing over their heads right now.

Garon was inconsistent tonight, but the D was terrible so it is hard to rate him.

The PK wasn't good tonight, but we knew that streak would eventual come to an end. Let's start a new one.

Mancrush of the night: Jake Voracek. Once he deliver his scoring touch, he'll be a dynamite player. I wouldn't mind getting him signed longterm before he really figures that out (next year)... it'd save a lot of money.

Whipping Boy tonight was the Captain. I call it the way I see it. I thought he had some lack relaxed backchecks and he was a -3 tonight. He tried to do a lot on a short handed rush and couldn't find his feet back into the play. It lead to the Penner goal that evened it. Time and score. The rush was good, but I'm not sure what hung him up in the corner afterward.

What will we see in Anaheim? Any predictions? Fire Away.

While I don't think this team would let the early season start go to their head. A game like this reminds us all that we are not golden boys. We were outclass in the 1st and didn't have the gas in the 3rd.

The first period was a dominating performance by the Flames with a guest appearance of Rick Nash. The Flames were hungry tonight. Our defensemen would coast into corners and look over their shoulder to see a Flame full-go coming at them. This hadn't happened to us before tonight, we didn't adjust. The first five minutes had the looks of a route. Then we take two penalties... to two of our PK defenders. Pahlsson, Nash, and Klesla played a great 5 on 3. Nash buzzed by Phaneuf before he realized Nash was going for it. I can't comprehend how a team can score a 5 on 3 SH goal, but Nash has done it twice in the last two years.

I was concerned that our defensive injuries would show up on the road when we don't dictate the matchups. That happened tonight. Klesla-Methot was not a capable shutdown pair. This game if nothing else magnifies the value of the road/home games. A defense that looked capable last game... looked bewildered tonight. Calgary has a lot of fire power and a lot of speed and that did not bode well in the first. This was the picture in the 1st period.

Paging Dr. Hitchcock.

What a difference a powerplay can make. What a difference a period could make. What looked to be a 3-1 beatdown in a matter of two minutes in the second period turned into a 3-3 game. It is absolutely necessary you have a great powerplay to win games like this on the road. You got to love the names that hit the score sheet: Brassard and Voracek.

Our 5 on 3 powerplay looks really great so far this year. I'm glad to see Derick Brassard to find the twine because I think he's been gripping it really hard. Great to see the sweet assist 45 seconds later. Once he adjusts to playing against the best defenders and checkers in the league- he'll be a stud.

Mason played great tonight, but the softie on Phaneuf that broke the 3-3 tie is one that he has to make. That's two soft wristers in as many games.

I thought Mathieu Roy played a heck of a game. His skating is still suspect, but he is holding his own.

We need more from Umberger and Vermette, these guys didn't do anything tonight. We have to get them going.

In the third it looked like both teams were out of gas. The first period tempo is impossible to sustain for an entire game. The third period definitely looked slow-mo. The Flames capitalized on our aggressiveness just like you'd expect a good team to do.

Even though we didn't get the win, the 2nd period resiliency is a great sign. Take nothing away from the Flames who are a very good hockey team.

Mancrush of the Night: The captain was solid tonight. He carried his mail and I felt was the only forward capable of making offense tonight against the Flame defense. He came up with the goal when we absolutely needed it. He has a knack for doing that.

Whipping Boy: Kristian Huselius. He made three first period defensive zone turnovers... in a matter of about 3 minutes. Regardless of the rest of the game, he gets the whipping stick tonight for that.

Thoughts? Hit the Comments

Let the record show that on October 17, 2009, the Columbus Blue Jackets have less losses than the Ohio State Buckeyes. With the way the teams are playing, it may be that way into November.

It wasn't a pretty effort. This win was from grit and opportunity- this Jackets team can cash in on opportunities. For the first time in our history I am watching games assuming we are going to win. About 10 minutes in I thought we were clearly the better team and I knew we'd pull it out. This is new uncharted territory for me. For the next 8 years we might be watching games different.

Our Penalty Kill continues to be the asset of the year. We aren't just effective at killing penalties, but we create offense. This will be in the head of most PP units that we face. Rick Nash cashed in tonight on a short handed rush (kudos to Methot for driving the net). Rick Nash loves one on one hockey. That's why he thrives offensively on the PK. He made Justin Williams look silly tonight.

Mark Methot stood tall tonight in his first performance as Jan Hejda. I'm very confident that he'll fill Jan's role short term. 4-6 weeks won't be nothing. I think we'll be fine defensively- at least at home when we can dictate the matchups.

The defense was overall pretty quiet tonight. That's good news. If this i what Hitch can do with this patchwork D, I'd wonder what he could do if he had an all-star back there. Maybe, we'll find out at the trade deadline.

It was a quiet night from the second line tonight. I'm glad to see Jake get the empty netter. Sometimes that goose egg gets in your head, especially if you are a goal scorer.

While the wins are great, I'm starting to get a little concerned with Brassard. You can tell he's really pressing and our top line isn't creating a lot of even strength opportunities. I'd wonder if we could reunite the Goat Line for a couple games. Nash - Vermette- Juice, Chimera - Brassard - Voracek

You want some crazy lines... Nash - Vermette- Filatov, Chimera - Brassard - Voracek, Umberger - Pahlsson - Dorsett, Huselius - Murray - Torres. There are four lines you could roll.

It was only a couple games ago I mentioned the Jason Chimera left wing, rush, from the circle, top shelf slapper and then he goes and scores another one. This guy has a shot. It's great to see a healthy Chimmer. He has played well in all three zones and has made nice smart plays.

The PP was not good tonight, although Raffi managed to pot another one (another strong game from Raffi). The break-ins were the problems tonight. We didn't get good forward speed or get the puck deep. This was something we were much better at up to this point so hopefully it was a blip or a credit to LA's PK.

Mason made a couple saves tonight, but overall wasn't too tested. The only goal he gave up, he'd like to have back.

Mancrush of the Night: Sammy Pahlsson. This guy continues to play tremendous positional hockey. He's always in the right spot. He won't get noticed, but thinking ahead toward the stretch run and playoffs this guy will be very important.

Whipping Boy of the Night: Terrelle Pryor. I'm glad I'm not a college football fan or a Buckeye fan because my words this guy isn't getting it done. He's getting worse every possession. It'll be a couple down seasons for the Bucks, hopefully the Jackets can take advantage.

5 and 1. This honestly was my prediction, but I had no idea it would actually happen. I think the first 10 games of the season are wins from training camp and coaching. We are prepared better than at least 90% of the teams in the league and I think this start shows the value of Hitch.

Thoughts? Fire Away. Ready for another roadie? No more home openers... I think.