Stars of the Night & Game in One Picture: SJS @ CBJ

The Jackets continue their breakneck speed chase to the playoffs. Tonight, the 3rd team in the West came to town – the San Jose Sharks (who are currently on a tear through the east). And let’s not forget how freakin’ good the West is. It was a mighty test after the Jackets have faltered against “really good” teams like St. Louis, Chicago and Pittsburgh. This may have been the Jackets’ best showing to date and that’s a good sign for a team that is building up to hopefully join the “really good” teams in the NHL. The boys brought home a point and couldn’t convert in the skills competition – but it was a good showing keeping the CBJ tied with the Rangers for one more night. And of course, props to Richards for putting Cam in the shootout lineup to confound any conspiracy theorists that are out there in CBJ land. On to the three stars…

3rd Star: Joe Pavelski

Joe Pavelski is good at hockey and he’s having a career year already matching the 66 points this far into the season as he had in his previous career high in 2010-11. He had a lovely assist to Mr. Marleau when the Jackets erred on the kill by sending two forwards deep into the offensive zone letting the Sharks skate with the man advantage in and Pavs simply had to feed it to Marleau for goal number three. When guys have that kind of talent, you can’t do that. Well, you can’t do that in general but you know what I mean. Pavs also had the only goal of the shootout so there’s that – he get’s a star.

2nd Star: Brandon Dubinsky

The lone Jacket to get a star and that’s probably the right call. Dubi played the ultimate Dubi-style game tonight…fighting in every inch of the ice and he had that lovely feed to Umberger for the short-handed goal and the CBJ’s second (and final) lead of the night. Not sure there’s another Jacket you could give a star to tonight, so I’m happy to see 17 get the nod and make it on the list.

1st Star: Patrick Marleau

Marleau gets two goals on the night including the third goal for his team which also conveniently broke their power play drought of 20 attempts. The other goal was assisted by the officiating crew but still – with a team like San Jose, you have to be on your A-game and the Jackets let Marleau make his mark tonight.

Pictures Go Here that Comment on the Game and Make You Smile

Stud. TIE – James Wisniewski & CBJ Game Ops I know that at the end of the day the things that make a good hockey team have nothing to do with what is (or isn’t) played over the sound system or shown on the jumbotron, but, down 3-2, the CBJ Game Ops crew decided to play this year’s version of Inches. You remember “Inches”. The audio from Al Pacino’s speech in Any Given Sunday played over highlights of CBJ hockey during the final game of last season. The CBJ was down against Nashville. The video plays and you could see the guys on the bench watching. Right after that, the Jackets take over the lead and never look back – it was magical, it was CBJ lore. Here’s the 2013 video:

Goosebumps right? So down by 1 with 6 minutes to go, game ops pulls this out again. I’ll admit my first thought was trepidation – as in, oh boy, now the video won’t elicit a winning response and it will never be used again…but in the time immediately following that viewing, along comes good ol’ James Wisniewski with a bomb from the point to even up the score. It kept the game alive, awakened the crowd, and ultimately secured the one point the CBJ take home tonight. Good stuff.

Dud: The CBJ Lineup. This is a silver lining dud. The awesome arrival of baby Anisimov and the not-so-awesome Comeau suspension saw a bit of line shuffling again tonight. While the team seems happy with the outcome overall, it’s hard not to wonder if a complete CBJ lineup wouldn’t have been able to seal the deal. Specifically, what if we had Arty in the shootout? And what if we had lines with a tiny bit more chemistry? I felt like guys were running into each other a bit more than usual and that speaks to lack of communication and chemistry from knowing your linemates a bit better. So not a knock overall, more of a “what could have been”?

The Jackets head next to Minnesota to face Coach Richards’ former team. A team we love tonight for beating the Rangers, but dislike on Saturday when the Jackets need to come out ahead. Ah the fun of hockey fandom. Should be a good matchup – puck drops at 8PM eastern.