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Zherdev came out like gangbusters but seem to fade, especially after that hard hit he received later in the first. I did find out this morning from a friend that Z was playing under the weather last night so I'll cut him some slack. Still he drew some penalties, played over 17 minutes and created offense.
Jared Boll. Another game, another fight. That makes 22 now and leads the NHL in that category. He had some prime scoring chances and major hits as well. I love this kid and this team is completely different without him in the lineup!
Busted bulbs
Vyborny with only 6 minutes last night. That was perhaps his final game in a CBJ sweater. He just doesn't have the game to fit into a Hitchcock system.
Rimer. Sounded a bit under the weather himself last night on the calls. Very subdued on his goal calls.
Michael Peca. Nice dish to Nash on the first goal but some real boneheaded penalties -- especially the grab on Kovalev to give the Canadiens that 5 on 3. Got to be smarter than that - that could have really changed momentum.
The Jackets as a whole took waaaay to many penalties. They are lucky their PK showed up last night..real lucky.
Fedorov with a charley horse (did some guy name Charley's horse get hurt or somethin to come up with that name.. I digress). The good news is that its day-to-day so it shouldn't hurt his trade value.
3 bright lights on the night
1. Pascal Leclaire - can't say enough about this guy's performance last night
2. Rick Nash - continues to lead an anemic offense with his 33rd on the year -- still dreaming of what this guy could do with Richards
3. Bob Gainey - an NHL legend honored
A big win last night but will it be enough to deter Scott Howson from breaking up this team? The Jackets are still 5 poitns out of the final playoff spot with 2 more games played than most of the teams ahead and behind them.
In short, I think he's still got to do what's best for this team long term while not completely depleting this team's chances at making a late push. I think the only player he may look to retain now is Adam Foote that two games ago he was probably going to offload. Hard to deal your captain and still convince your team to play hard for the post season.
3-2 on this 5 game road trip. Hard to look at that and say it was anything other than a success when you take into account the Jackets historically really struggle on the road. I'm definitely proud of the way these guys battled the past two games.
Next up is the trade deadline. Howson is certainly on the hot seat. We now will just sit back and see what happens. I'll have more later on my predictions taking everything into account such as standings, games played, pending UFAs, etc.
-LTL
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