Still banged and battered from a physical game in Los Angeles, Columbus elected to forego the morning skate yesterday in an effort to soak up some extra recovery time. When the Blue Jackets stepped onto the ice in Anaheim, their opponents did not afford them a similar luxury in the Ducks’ 7-4 win yesterday.
Similar to last game, thunderous checks came early and often. Columbus was able to match the Ducks’ grit, though in doing so, the team slipped in its defensive responsibilities.
Anaheim opened the scoring 2:14 into the game when Luca Sbisa unleashed a heavy shot and Andrew Cogliano chopped in the juicy rebound. The Ducks’ lead then increased to 2-0 when Corey Perry sniped a wrist shot under goalie Steve Mason’s glove hand.
With less than three minutes until intermission, Columbus cut the lead in half as Rick Nash scored from behind the goal line. Soon after, Anaheim goalie Jonas Hiller left the game with a lower-body injury. Iiro Tarkki, making his NHL debut, came on in replacement.
Despite the favorable changes for the Blue Jackets, late-period tallies from Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu made it 4-1 before the teams headed into the locker room. Curtis Sanford came on in relief for Mason after the first period.
In the second frame, the teams traded goals from Derick Brassard and Perry respectively. The Ducks’ goal was their second on the power play.
Anaheim did not relent in the third period, though its focus strayed away from scoring. Following Selanne’s second goal of the night, things started to get chippy. Twenty seconds after the Ducks took the 6-2 lead, their efforts to make it 7-2 were squashed when a scuffle on the other end of the ice stopped play before the puck crossed the goal line.
Discrepancies started to break out on and off the ice as pent-up anger started to boil over. With a slew of major penalties, the teams combined for 29 penalty minutes in the final period. At one point, problems in the seats surrounding Columbus’ penalty box caused a brief halt in the game.
At 4:27, Nash tried to begin a comeback as he notched his second goal of the night with a nasty wrist shot from the slot. Winger Derek Dorsett added another to make it 6-4, but that would be the end of the Blue Jackets’ scoring.
Perry iced the game by sending a long shot from the Anaheim defensive zone into the back of the net for his hat-trick goal. Hats littered the ice as Ducks fans celebrated their team’s victory, a feat that saved them from earning the label of the league’s worst team.
mm938910@ohiou.edu
