That was a hockey game. Wait, that doesn’t really say what I’m trying to say. That was hockey game. One of the best games I’ve seen in a while. Both teams play such similar, hard styles, that when both teams play well, it’s just beautiful hockey. Had the Jackets managed to lose, I still think I would have greatly enjoyed watching that game. Made me wish the two could somehow meet in a playoff series. Imagine seven straight games of that? Man, that would be intense. Anyway, yeah the Jackets earned a hard-fought, well-played 5-3 victory over the LA Kings. It really was a true team effort, with pretty much every line and defense pair contributing at times, and Sergei Bobrovsky coming up with a few huge saves. With that being said, some Jackets shone brighter than others.
Third Star: James Wisniewski
Wiz was solid tonight with two apples (although Murray deserves both assists on Johansen’s goal). However, I’ll take him here as a stand in for the powerplay in general. They only went 1/3 on the evening but the puck movement was very solid, and they came away with ten shots. There was some nice trickery on the backend that they haven’t used as much in the past. A lot of movement away from the puck by the two defensemen and one of the forwards. It helped create a lot of space, best seen on Umberger’s powerplay goal, and when Letestu managed to get in all alone on Jones (he had five hole but pushed past it trying to go around Jones).
Second Star: Artem Anisimov
A couple of fantastic individual efforts by Arty deservedly get him this spot. His play on the goal was the kind of thing I ache to see him do all the time. It was positively Malkin-esque in terms of the puck control, body control, use of his size to play keep away, before using his reach to tuck it around the goalie. His defensive effort on Horton’s goal was also pretty good, as it looked like the Kings had the Jackets hemmed in, Arty blocked the puck, beat the Kings to it, then made a nice feed (with a rolling puck no less) to Horton for the beauty upstairs finish. He also managed to fill up the stat sheet quite nicely, with a goal and an assist for two points, a +2, two penalty minutes, three shots, two hits, and went 55% on faceoffs.
First Star: RJ Umberger
Serious question: has Umberger ever skated harder than when he was trying to track down the puck with the empty net, gunning for the hat trick? I swear I was a little caught off guard when I realized it was him, as I didn’t think it was possible for him to move that fast. All joking aside, Umby was great tonight. As was that entire line, as Umberger, Johansen and Foligno combined for three goals and ten shots on net.
Dud: Teeyoutin
I have very little negative to say, so I’m going with the Kings play-by-play guy’s mispronunciation of Fedor Tyutin’s last name. He failed pretty hard at it, but in such an awesome way. Tee-you-tin. Say it again. Tee-you-tin. I laughed a little every time.
Stud: Everyone
Seriously, everyone had it going tonight. Only exception would possible be Dubinsky, Atkinson and Calvert, but even they weren’t what I’d consider terrible. Horton probably should have been a little tighter on King for the first goal, but that was a strange bounce. David Savard played a three on one about as well as can be played and they only got scored on because Jeff Carter is really good at hockey. The third goal was a complete fluke. Umberger managed one fluky goal, but the other four goals were beautiful. The pass from Murray to Johansen to spring him for the breakaway goal might be the best pass of the year, when you consider the distance, velocity, timing and placement of it. Great efforts all around, everyone gets a gold star. That makes a club record seven straight wins, let’s hope they can keep it up on Thursday against the recently extended (hehe) Steve Mason and the Philadelphia Flyers.
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