Blue Jackets 2, Avalanche 0
It was only fitting that tallies from a pair of blue-liners carried Columbus to a 2-0-shutout victory against Colorado on Thursday night.
In the highly defensive effort, the Blue Jackets received scoring contributions from Nikita Nikitin and Fedor Tyutin. On the other end of the ice, Steve Mason shined to secure the win.
Rebounding from a poor outing against the Avalanche less than one week earlier, Mason stopped 33 shots in his first shutout victory of the season.
The Blue Jackets scored the opening goal at 12:53 of the first period. On the power play, Vinny Prospal fed a pass to Nikitin who banged a heavy slap shot from the faceoff circle past Semyon Varlamov for the 1-0 lead.
In the second period, Columbus scored again to make it 2-0. Skating at even strength, Derick Brassard scooped up the puck around center ice, dished the biscuit off to Prospal, then Prospal put a pass on for Tyutin who picked up his fifth goal of the season.
The goal came seconds after Jack Johnson dropped the gloves for the first time in a Blue Jackets sweater. Johnson, rarely a fighter, won his bout with Gabriel Landeskog in a convincing fashion.
On the power play late in the third period, Colorado pulled Varlamov for a 6-on-4 man advantage, but Columbus’ penalty kill stifled the comeback attempt.
The Blue Jackets return to action against Antoine Vermette and the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment