Nikita Filatov has just been recalled from Syracuse. Didn't see that one coming! Just got ahold of Scott Howson and he said it's as simple as, "We want him to experience the playoff chase." Don't know how much game time ice he will see or this might be more about getting an up close view of the preparation needed to be made for the playoffs as he will be a more critical piece next year.
The Columbus Blue Jackets have recalled forward Nikita Filatov from the Syracuse Crunch, Columbus’ American Hockey League affiliate, club General Manager Scott Howson announced today.
Filatov, 18, has collected four goals and has a +3 plus/minus rating in eight games with the Blue Jackets this season. He became the first Blue Jackets rookie to score a hat trick when he had three goals against Minnesota on January 10 and also became only the fourth player in franchise history to score a goal in his NHL debut against Nashville on October 17.
Columbus’ first pick, sixth overall, in the 2008 Entry Draft, Filatov has recorded 16-16-32 in 39 games with the Crunch.
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My computer has finally stopped smoking, so I think is safe to post this. The live blog last night blew up! Almost 1400 comments last night! For my regulars to the live blog, I apologize as I wasn't able to post as many things as I normally do because of maxing out the program. I do want to thank Eklund and Julie Robenhymer for coming last night. It was great and it caused quite a stir with the normal media that is at Blue Jackets games.
Now to the game. How important is Raffi Torres becoming to this team? He leads the team in game winners and has 5 since February 26th.
During the live blog, I had a feeling Torres would put in a goal and posted it. Do I have ESP as some said on the blog? Not at all! Torres comes up big in games that hang in the balance. "Clutch" might be his new nickname and Torres will need to continue to be clutch going down the stretch and into the playoffs.
2 of the best goalies and obviously the 2 best rookie goalies lined up last night and they didn't disappoint! Pekke Rinne is the real deal but every goalie has their weaknesses just as Steve Mason is high glove side, Rinne is at his feet. Torres commented after the game by saying, "What we need to focus on with him is get the puck to his feet. It seems like he gives it up a little more like that."
As good as the win was, the Jackets will have to play even better in Nashville where the team is a horrible 4-19-2 all time and 0-2-0 this year. I think that the CBJ need to be far more physical than they were last night. Both teams seem to be scared to make hits in fear of being caught out of position and giving up break aways or 2 on 1 opportunities. Play to win Jackets, play to win!
"Fire The Cannon" podcast tonight at 7pm ET
Having on Paul McCann, Preds Hockeybuzz blogger and also from SportsRadio 560 WNSR out of Nashville. Also, a return visit from Lindsay Kramer, the beat writer for the Syracuse Crunch for the Syracuse Post-Standard. Will again have another segment of "Inside The Locker Room" and a lot more talk about the chase to the promise land.
Don't Miss It!
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Post-Game Notes
Nashville Predators (1) at Columbus Blue Jackets (2)
March 31, 2009 – Nationwide Arena (14,495)
Blue Jackets Team Notes
With the 2-1 win tonight, Columbus improved to 8-2-2 in its past 12 games after posting a 2-4-0 mark the previous six games. The Blue Jackets also improved to 11-3-1 in the past 14 games at Nationwide Arena. After opening the season 5-5-1 in the first 11 games at home, Columbus has rallied to go 20-7-1 in the past 28 home games. The win was the club’s 40th of the season, a franchise record and five better than the previous mark of 35, was set in 2005-06. Columbus has also set the franchise mark for points in a season with 88 to its credit, eight better than the 80 the club had last season. The club set the franchise mark for home wins Mar. 26 vs. Calgary, and now has 25 to its credit, two better than the record of 23 set in 2005-06. The Jackets also have 52 home points, breaking the previous mark of 47 set in 2002-03 and 2007-08. The Blue Jackets won all three home contests against the Predators this season, marking the first time in club history they have won all the home games in the season series. Columbus is 4-1-0 in the past five home games against Nashville after posting an 0-5-1 mark in the previous six games.
With the win tonight, Columbus is now:
40-29-8 overall, while posting a 25-12-2 mark at home
12-21-5 when the opponent scores first
16-12-5 when tied after the first period and is 16-3-4 when tied after the second period
Blue Jackets Player Notes
C R.J. Umberger scored his 26th goal of the season at 19:14 of the first period
He has points in three of the past four games (2-1-3), while also collecting 11-8-19 his past 28 games. He has set a career high in goals and has six more than his previous best of 20 goals that he had in 73 games with Philadelphia during the 2005-06 season. He has 13 more goals than his total in 74 games with the Flyers last season. Columbus has posted a 14-2-5 this season when he scores a goal and 23-5-6 when he tallies a point.
C Antoine Vermette collected an assist on Umberger’s goal, his first assist in eight games
Acquired from Ottawa on Mar. 4, he has points in eight of the 11 games (6-4-10) he has played with the Blue Jackets. He has registered 9-11-20 the past 23 games (CBJ and OTT) after being held to 1-3-4 the previous nine outings. Columbus has posted a 7-0-1 when he registers a point.
C Jason Williams pushed his point streak to five games with an assist on Umberger’s goal
He has collected 2-4-6 during the point streak and also has 5-9-14 in the past 14 games. He was acquired by the Blue Jackets from Atlanta on Jan. 15 and has tallied 10-16-26 in 33 games with Columbus after being held to 0-1-1 his final eight games with the Thrashers. He has pushed his season totals to 17-27-44 in 75 games this season with the Blue Jackets and Thrashers.
LW Raffi Torres scored his 12th goal of the season at 4:05 of the third period. After missing 29 of the seasons first 43 games due to injury, he has collected 10-3-13 the past 23 games, including five game-winning goals, after being held to 2-3-5 his first 23 games of the season. He now has six game-winning goals in 46 games this season, after scoring eight in the first 307 games of his career. He has taken the club lead in the category, one better than Rick Nash. He is also one game-winning goal shy of tying the club record of seven, set twice. Rick Nash had seven in 2003-04, while Geoff Sanderson had seven in 2000-01. Torres has goals in eight of the past 16 games, while Columbus has posted an 11-0-0 mark this season when he scores.
C Michael Peca had an assist on Torres’ goal, his 18th helper of the campaign. He has collected 0-5-5 the past nine games after being held to 0-1-1 the previous eight games. He also has notched 2-13-15 the past 35 games after being held to 2-1-3 the previous 23 contests. Columbus is 13-2-1 when he registers an assist and is 17-2-1 when he notches a point.
RW Jared Boll also had an assist on Torres’ goal, his 10th assist of the season. He snapped a 10-game pointless streak, as his last point was an assist Mar. 7 at Detroit
With 10 assists and 13 points, he already has set career highs in both categories, as he had five assists and 10 points with the Blue Jackets last season. The Jackets are 7-1-1 this season and 10-2-1 all-time when he tallies an assist.
G Steve Mason stopped 21-of-22 shots to earn his 32nd win of the season. He is now 32-18-5 with a 2.22 goals-against average and .919 save percentage in 56 games. He has already broke the Blue Jackets record for wins in a season, topping the previous mark set by Marc Denis, who had 27 wins in 2002-03 (77 games). Mason entered the night ranked third in the NHL in goals-against average, tied for seventh in save percentage and tied for ninth in wins. He has allowed two or fewer goals in 31 of his 56 starts, including four of the past six games.
Quotes
Columbus Blue Jackets Head Coach Ken Hitchcock
Commenting on tonight’s game…
“I was just happy with the way we played. I’ve been in these games before, where you miss opportunities and you hit goal posts and the goalie makes saves… (and you lose). I don’t worry about the losses, I worry about the way we played. We played the right way. The win was a bonus. If you don’t play the right way, you’re not going to win.
“It was fun coaching. We played the right way. We were focused. I wasn’t happy with the way we played the third period against St. Louis… but we’re right back on task. We played the right way, we covered up for each other, and we put the puck in the right areas… we did a lot of really good things today.”
Commenting on the play of the Umberger-Vermette-Williams line…
“We needed to get production (from all four lines) and we got it. I really like the Umberger-Vermette-Williams line. If Jiri (Novotny) can play like that every night, it would be a big boost for us right now.”
Commenting on the play of Raffi Torres…
“He scores big goals all the time. This is what Scott (Howson) knew about him, he’s best when it’s centrally focused, like he is right now. He’s had a huge impact on a lot of games in the last month. It was nice to see. I expect he’s going to be a good player on Saturday night, too.”
Commenting on the defensemen…
“The two guys that were good for me were (Marc) Methot and (Kris) Russell. We needed them to step up and they did. Both guys were very good today, solid, composed and factors in the game – Methot in controlling the temp and Russell in creating the offense we wanted to create.”
Commenting on Steve Mason bouncing back with a solid performance…
“He was good. He was solid. We need to be better with the communication behind the net (between the goalie and the defensemen). That’s an area we’d like to get better at (as a team).”
Blue Jackets Center R.J. Umberger
Commenting on tonight’s game…
“I think we were relaxed for the whole game. We played great the whole game. We didn’t worry about not scoring. We stuck with it. We knew if we played a 60-minute game we’d come out on top. We felt no pressure.”
Commenting on generating offense tonight…
“We threw a lot of rubber at the net. We had a lot of guys there. This goalie’s (Pekka Rinne) been playing pretty well, and that’s what you have to do against tough goalies. You have to get the puck to the net as many times as you can, get guys there. He was kicking out some rebounds all game. Raffi (Torres) was going hard to the net and I just followed my own. So it was second and third efforts tonight.”
Blue Jackets Goalie Steve Mason
Commenting on bouncing back from a 5-2 loss Sunday vs. St. Louis…
“It’s disappointing to make a mistake like that, but everybody makes them. There’s going to be more mistakes down the road. It’s just how you respond that makes you who you are. I wanted to come out with a good effort and, for the most part, I think I did that.”
Commenting on killing off the 5-on-3 power play Nashville had in the third period…
“We didn’t have a whole lot of penalties for the entire game, and then to take two in a row was definitely a momentum killer. But we did a great job of killing them off and assuring that we kept our lead.”
Blue Jackets Left Wing Raffi Torres
Commenting on the team’s 11-0-0 record when he scores a goal…
“To be honest with you, I think it’s a fluke. I didn’t even know about it until the last (time it happened). I just got to keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully we’ll keep going.”
Commenting on his game-winning goal…
“It was a great play on the wall from Boller (Jared Boll) to start it off, and I saw Pecs (Michael Peca) coming to pick (the puck) up to get a 2-on-1 there. I knew he wasn’t going to be able to pass it. Their defenseman did a good job of taking the pass away. So I just went to the net with my stick on the ice and it worked out for me.”
Nashville Predators Head Coach Barry Trotz
Commenting on tonight’s game…
“I didn’t think we skated as well as we have been skating in the first period. It’s a little bit of us, but I thought Columbus came out with a lot of energy and a lot of desperation in their game, so I am not going to take anything away from that. I thought we could have skated better in the first, I thought we skated a little better in the second and in the third it came down to a couple of breaks. It’s a game of breaks I thought, for the most part, pretty good effort from our guys the last 40 minutes. I didn’t care too much for the first 10.”
Commenting on the playoff picture…
“We just have to fight for points. I wish we would have been able to get a point tonight. It’s not necessarily about winning or losing, it’s about getting points. Because you never know what point may get you in or keep you out.”
Nashville Predators Left Wing Steve Sullivan
Commenting on tonight’s game…
“I thought it was one of our worst games in a long time. We didn’t have very much energy, we weren’t forechecking, we weren’t able to get on their defense, not like we have been able to in the past. We weren’t able to get any pressure and they took advantage of that and spent a lot of time in our own end and we spent most of the night defending and wasting energy trying to keep the puck out of our net.”
Commenting on the playoff picture…
“We have five games left. It makes it a little tougher not winning tonight’s game but we are definitely in the thick of things and looking forward to our next challenge. We don’t have time to sulk and pout about this one we have to get ready for the next one. It’s the position we put ourselves in and we are going to get ourselves out of it.”
Nashville Predators Left Wing Vernon Fiddler
Commenting on tonight’s game…
“I don’t think it was one of our best efforts. We just didn’t find any energy in the first period. You have to give them credit; they came at us pretty hard. I don’t know if we were ready to play, but they controlled the pace of the game and that is not our style, we usually dictate what goes on. That’s why we have been successful of late. We are down a few guys, our energy should be up. We have to find a way to get it back the next game.”
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • 
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