Three Stars and Game in One Picture: NSH @ CBJ

Well it had to happen some time. The Jackets suffered their first regulation defeat and only second loss overall in the last ten games last night to the Nashville Predators. It was a weird game – for those who follow possession-based stats, last night marked the best Corsi showing of the Jackets in quite some time. One can argue that score effects – a trailing team works harder to score when there is a goal differential of 2 or more, and a leading team takes their foot off the gas a bit in the same scenario – were in play, but the Jackets still put up a respectable CF% of 45.71% at even strength in the first period which ended zero-zero. It really seemed to come down to the disallowed goal (by Foligno) that took the focus out of the Jackets’ game and led to a loss. This team needs to play better because bob is going to be average from time to time and last night was one of those nights. Let’s take a look at the three stars as named by NHL.com

3rd Star: Colin Wilson First goal of the night is really all it takes to earn a star in a dominant showing by the Predators. But seriously, Wilson broke open the scoring and later had the assist on the fourth goal. Not that that goal mattered much.

2nd Star: Craig Smith Two goals for the Nashville center certainly deserves recognition. The first of Smith’s goals came only 1:38 after Colin Wilson’s goal and really provided a counterpunch from the Predators that the jackets couldn’t recover from.

1st Star: Pekka Rinne How good is this guy? He’s really the key to the Predators success this year – in my opinion at least – and that is something that’s quite familiar to Jackets fans. 31 shots, 30 saves  made for a save percentage of .968 on the night and he’s still firmly in first place among all goaltenders in the NHL with 22 wins, and a save percentage of .934. Yeah, he’s good.

Game in One Picture

Stud: Alexander Wennberg. Alright, let’s give the guy his due. FINALLY gets his first North American goal 32 games in. Good on the young Swede.

Dud: The disallowed goal. We’re not going to enter into a discussion of the rule etc. I think that was sufficiently handled last night but all the powers that be. And at the end of the night, the call is the call and any and all complaining doesn’t do one thing to change that. (For the record, per NHL.com Rinne did think it was a goal initially: “I felt it was a goal, 100 percent, because I didn’t even know the net was off its moorings,” he said. “It wasn’t intentional. I just threw my body on that side. It was a rebound. He had an empty net, so I tried to get it full power push as hard as I could.”) But. More importantly, the disallowed goal seemed to shut down the team for the rest of the night. Good times get over bad (or good) calls that don’t go their way. The tone of the game switched at this point and the jackets need to be better.

The team now enjoys a holiday break until Saturday (no practices until the game day skate prior to the Boston game). And Saturday brings the challenge of the Boston Bruins who are not only also hungry for points against an eastern opponent but you may have heard that some guy named Lucic has a bone to pick with dear ol’ Dalton Prout…gonna be interesting.

Carry the Flag