Columbus Makes A Bold Statement Against Calgary

Columbus Blue Jackets Beat Flames

Neil Becker

29sports.com

In what is looking more and more to be a potential first round matchup the Columbus Blue Jackets showed the Calgary Flames on Thursday night that they are indeed a team to be taken seriously.

On the verge of participating in post season play for the first time in franchise history, Columbus who currently occupy sixth spot with 85 points in the Western Conference were led by rookie goaltender Steve Mason who recorded his league leading 10th shutout.

“We have a pretty good idea that if we’re in the playoffs this is a team we could be playing, so we wanted to have a good effort,” said Mason who made 33 saves. “We definitely came forward with it that’s for sure.”

Leading the way for Columbus on this evening was Rick Nash who had a career night with four assists and Kristian Huselius who used to be a Calgary Flame also had four assists in what was a fight filled 5-0 Blue Jackets victory.

“It shows what we have to do to beat a team like that,” Nash said. “They’re obviously a great team. We know they didn’t play their best, but I thought we had a great game and we played our best.”

Playing in the Blue Jackets favour was the fact that the Flames played the night before in Pittsburgh where they lost 2-0. The Flames have now lost two in a row but according to coach Mike Keenan no one is pushing the panic button.

“We showed some elements of frustration and lack of discipline in certain areas, particularly when it wasn’t going our way,” Keenan said.

Calgary who are still in great shape with 90 points and third in the West came out flat and quickly found themselves trailing 4-0 in the second period. Columbus who are peaking at the right time with a record of 7-1-1 in their past nine games got goals from Manny Malhotra, Jason Williams, Raffi Torres and R.J. Umberger and managed to chase Flames starting goalie Mikka Kiprusoff to the bench.

“They were good,” Calgary captain Jarome Iginla said. “Husselius had a great game and so did Nash. Their line was controlling things all night, creating momentum for them. They were good and our game isn’t where it needs to be right now.”

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