Oh Jason Chimera...

Jason Chimera aside from being the joker in the Blue Jackets locker room is started to show that he is much more than a checking line forward. In an exhibition game last week he had a goal 2 assists and 2 fights. A Gordie Howe hat trick plus some. (Gordie Howe hat trick is a goal a fight and an assist). When speaking to a reporter about it he said:

Reporter: "Do you prefer Gordon or Gordie?"

Chimera: "Mr. Howe would be fine."

How can you not love that guy? Chimera is such an important part of the Blue Jackets. When Hitchcock took over last season he sat all the players down and gave them specific rolls. Hitch told Chimera...that everyone has to check and everyone has to score. Also, when Hitchcock got here Chimera's all around performance improved.

Chimera had two goals, four assists and a minus-5 rating in 20 games before Hitchcock was hired last season. In 62 games under Hitchcock, he had 13 goals, 17 assists and a plus-7 rating.

Pretty impressive. During training camp Chimera has been on a line with Jakub Voracek and Derick Brasard. Hitch wants him used to scoring goals.

"Jason has always been an elite skater," Hitchcock said. "If not the best skater in the league, he's one of the top two or three. He'd get going so fast that it was hard to make plays. Well, his mind has now caught up with his legs, and he's able to think on the ice."

Also, on the camp front after reading Portzline's blog apparently Shelley is taking on a leadership role (which I have talked about before) telling one of the younger campers to get his act together.

Camper of the day: Jody Shelley. I won't tell you who, but Shelley strongly, professionally and bluntly corrected a young player for leaving the ice too early after Wednesday's practice. Big No. 45 said his peace and moved on. No hard feelings, no discussion needed. That, friends, is leadership. This, friends, is a new era.

Jody Shelley according to Portzline at least would be the captain of the Blue Jackets if he wasn't a fourth line winger.

Take a picture of the good side...the left.

With the article that came out in today's Dispatch about our left wingers. I figured I should post something up about the guys. Our left winger is our strongest position...we have a bunch of third and fourth line center's who need to reach position. And, our right winger basically is all Nikolai Zherdev...soon to be Jakub Voracek. Let's look at our left winters...Rick Nash, Fredrik Modin, Jason Chimera, and Jody Shelley. That sounds pretty amazing to me.

General Manager Scott Howson described Nash:

"We now see him as one of the top left wingers in the league," general manager Scott Howson said. "But he's getting better, and I'm of the belief that he'll be one of the better players in the league pretty soon."It's true...Nash is full of potential he has only reached one season. With Hitch behind the bench he will force all the boys to be better.

Fredrik Modin, with his newly (sorta) inked contract is ours for a few more years.

"Modin is a professional player, and we needed that element on our hockey club," Hitchcock said. "I didn't want even a chance that we'd lose a guy like that."

Hitch also said that he was "wildly underappreciated" well yeah. The guy had no center...and still doesn't really. Well unless someone steps up (I personally am hoping for Gilbert Brule to prove himself.)

Jason Chimera, like the rest of the team, needs to be consistent. Jody Shelley is our fourth line winger, our tough guy, but knowing what I know about that locker room he plays in EXTREMELY important role. While talking to Aaron Portzline about him he said, that if Shelley wasn't a fourth line winger he would be our Captain. He is so passionate, so amazing, and goes out there and fives it everything he has every night.

"I would say the strength of this clubs is our wings, anyway," coach Ken Hitchcock said. "But our left side has a real good chance to be dynamic. You've got the power forward element with Nash. You've got Freddy Modin, who is the consummate pro. Jason Chimera gives you speed and size and the potential to do a lot of damage on that third line. And Shelley … everybody knows he's one of the toughest guys in the league, one of our real heart-and-soul guys."

While the offseason is good...the season really needs to hurry up and get here. I miss hockey dang it.

WE WIN IN A SHOOTOUT!!!

So I decided since I just got my Center Ice thing that I would live blog the Columbus game…like I normally do but I wanted to watch it with the Dallas point of view. I am curious to see what is different. Also, if you are thinking about getting Center Ice but don’t know if you should or not…I have had it for a day and I LOVE it!!! You get every game out there. Me, living where I do, am really thankful for it. Is it bad that I’m already annoyed with the Stars coverage? Man I hope the Jackets crush them. What an obnoxious team with obnoxious colors. I wanna know which goalie is starting and I am anxious to see if they play Smith in the playoffs, because as we know Turco is a bit of a choke artist in the playoffs. Alright I changed my mind, I have on my Columbus guys. I just can’t stand to not hear the usual guys callin the game. Oh man, Foote just took a weird hit…and he is going to the dressing room. It’s Mike Modano’s fault!!! Grrr. I hate seeing Adam like that. Ole-Kristian Tollefsen is back…that helps a little bit. Oh man Glencross, Konopka, and Shelley are all in the line up tonight. That’s a scary line…a hard-hitting line also. Why is it that I love hard hitters? I don’t know why. Oh well. Columbus took the first penalty Nash took it…darn him. We were able to kill it off…thank goodness. Since Leclaire is out for the season (WHY CAN’T HE GO AWAY?!) Norrena who will be out number one goalie whom I love so dearly is in…and backing him up is Brian Boucher. So Adam Foote is having his foot x-rayed. I am sad. If Foote isn’t in for the game that I’m at next week I will be so sad. He is my mom’s favorite. Heck yeah, Manny Malhotra just scored the first goal of the game. When we score first we are 17-2-4 I think is what they said. So, that’s a good sign. Malhotra was tripped up and no penalty was called. I am really shocked at how quiet the Stars arena is. I watched the Kings vs Ducks game last night and it was loud in there. Where are the Stars fans at?! There may not be a lot of Jackets fans but we are at least vocal…or maybe I am bias. The Jackets outshot the Stars 10-7. And, the score is 1-0 Jackets. To be honest, I wasn’t going to watch this game because I’m going to the game on the 9th and I didn’t really want to see what it was going to look like…but I figure why not. May as well. Why is the NHL sponsoring this movie 300? It kinda scares me and I think it’s so weird.
GOAL: Malhotra (CBJ)
ASSISTS: Chimera, Brule
SCORE: Columbus – 1
Dallas - 0
Sergei Fedorov just scored. I wasn’t really paying much attention. I get so distracted with youtube. Tollefsen roughed up somebody after the whistle…I’m not really sure who. But man I love Tollefsen. The way he plays. He plays with a ton of heart and is very very entertaining. Columbus is going to take a penalty. Vyborny took it for hooking. Norrena is playing excellent tonight. But, with a 2-0 lead…they always say is the most dangerous lead in the league. Which I was right…with Dallas on the powerplay they scored. And, now right after that Mike Modano scored to make it 2-2. Man I hate that. Hopefully Hitch gets the boys together…he called a time out. Why is Modano not the captain of the Stars? That doesn’t make sense to me. He seems to be the leader. The Jackets tend to get all out of sorts when the team they are playing score like that. This is starting to becoming quite the game. It just keeps going back and fourth which I love especially when both teams are playing so hard. Dallas because they want to catch up to Anaheim and Columbus because we have our young guys up…they are trying to prove themselves and not doing too bad of a job. The future of the Jackets I think is looking quite bright. Next year is our year…I know I keep saying that but it’s the truth!! HAHA they just showed Turco mic’d up from the All Star game. That was hilarious. ‘Can you guys go celebrate somewhere else?’ Classic. Turco seems to have quite the personality. Foote has a high ankle sprain they just said. I am sad. Hopefully, he will be back soon. It seems like Columbus is the place for injuries. These refs aren’t very good. I have seen quite a few very obvious penalties and they just aren’t seeing them.
GOAL: Fedorov (CBJ)
ASSISTS: Methot, Modin
GOAL: Sydor (DAL)
ASSISTS: Ribeiro, Robidas
GOAL: Modano (DAL)
ASSISTS: Jokinen, Sydor
SCORE: Columbus – 2
Dallas - 2
Ya know trying to avoid a hockey game score when you’re watching a hockey game is hard as hell. I’m trying to avoid the Jersey game because I am recording it. Now I am watching an interview in Laraque. I like him. I like his style. He is a tough guy. How much do I love center ice? I love it…I keep flippin through all the games in the NHL…quite exciting. These Stars keep knocking down Nash. It’s starting to piss me off. The refs are clearly blind or mentally retarded…and know nothing. We can’t get a power play to save our life! We just took another one. I hate these refs! And, YES, I am being bitter. I know that we did have those penalties but it’s like the refs are choosing not to see the penalties that the Stars are doing. Stars should have had another penalty. Again we were able to kill off that penalty and limit them to only 2 shots on goal. Alright finally we are getting on the power play…hopefully we can make it effective. The last few minutes of this 3rd period is pretty aggressive. These refs are killing me…there have been at least 2 hits from behind this period and both of them were not called. That does not thrill me. That could hurt our boys…and we already have enough guys injured. It’s looking like this game is going to go into over time. It always makes me nervous when we go to over time…because that means that we have a chance of going into a shootout.
SCORE: Columbus – 2
Dallas - 2
Alright, here we go time for 5 minutes of 4 on 4 hockey. Nothing really has happened so far…but there is still 3:30 left. Modano just took a shot and Norrena made a great save. Zherdev had a breakaway and it went just wide of the net. 2 minutes left in OT…no other real scoring chances. Haha my mom just said, “Come on guys just score so you don’t have to go to the shoot out…you never win in the shoot out.” Maybe she’s not as clueless about hockey as I thought haha. This is just getting brutal…I want to win this game so bad. I get so emotion in over time games. I don’t know why. AHH!! It’s going into a shootout…and I hate it.
SCORE: Columbus – 2
Dallas - 2
SHOOTOUT!!!! Let’s see who is gonna come out.
Chimera - SCORE HOLLA!! Zubov - STICK SAVE!!
Konopka - MISSED THE NET!! Modano – WENT WIDE!! Klesla - Didn’t get to shoot… Jokinen - SAVE!!
SCORE COLUMBUS – 3
Dallas - 2

Well everyone…we went against the odds and WON!! That’s right we won in a shootout. Due in part to Ken Hitchcock’s wonderful idea of having a shootout competition yesterday. I LOVE HITCH!!! I am pumped!
My three stars of the game:
1. Fredrik Norrena WOOO!!! Atta boy
2. Jason Chimera
3. Sergei Fedorov

Sweet Sweet Victory...

You’ll have to bare with me I am blogging while I watch the game. Well the first 10 minutes of the hockey game was dominated by the Rangers…in fact when they had 2 goals and 6 shots on goal…we didn’t have any shots on goal. I guess Hitch made a comment because we started getting things going. Shelley got into a fight with Orr and it was quite the heavy weight match up. But, in the end they just tired each other out and they were separated. Eriksson got his first goal of the season…so congrats to him!!

Anyway going into the second we were 2-1. Oh and just so know they showed that clip of Avery and Brodeur again and it got me fired up again. If Avery does that crap to Freddy…man I will be ticked!! Second period Svitov got called for Interference and the Rangers got their second power play of the night. Thank goodness we were able to kill that penalty off. We got another penalty…Klesla took a hooking penalty. And amazingly we got a short-handed goal Chimera had an amazing shot over the shoulder of Lundqvist .(random fact it was only the 3rd short-handed goal that the Rangers have given up.) You know people myself included say oh I love watching these young players like Malkin and Ovechkin…but there are games…when Adam Foote is playing really well and it makes me happy to see that. We took another penalty Eriksson took a hooking penalty. HOLY COW!! Rick Nash just scored the go ahead goal another short-hander so that makes the 4th short-handed goal they have given up. My Jackets are stepping it up. We are just now getting our first power play of the night. Sean Avery was called for hooking on Fedorov.

So going into the third we are ahead 3-2. Foote and Avery are having a bit of a battle tonight. Foote is making sure he is staying clear of Freddy. In my opinion nothing is more important than protecting your goalie. Brule is having a great third period. I’m not sure what line he is on this period but he is looking really good. Johnson took a tripping penalty and our penalty kill has been really good tonight. We have killed off 4 out of the 5 penalties, and 2 of the 5 we got a goal. Modin is blocking shot after shot this period. He is just totally killer. I hope we can get that 3 year extension…they said it is probably going to be announced Monday. I think he will really be a key for us. Hopefully we draft well and get some good UFA signings this year. I am loving how abusive our guys are to Avery…Foote slapped his stick out of his hand Fedorov tripped him…and we did all this without a penalty haha. This game is getting pretty intense now. You can tell the Rangers are just hopin to get this win. But, when the Jackets play like this…it’s hard to get a win against us. We don’t play like this too often…but I love when we do. Our goalie has been outstanding. Full props to him. I get so nervous every time Jagr has the puck and starts coming down the ice. He is such a good player. Rangers pulled their goalie and then took a penalty. So Columbus is on the power play to finish out the game. The fans at Madison Square Garden are pretty ticked about this game. It was a huge game for us though. We did amazing!! Norrena did great. I love seeing the goalie love at the end of the game.

I love come from behind wins…there is something so satisfying to me even as a fan. When your team plays as well as mine did tonight it was very gradifying. Oddly enough Freddy didn’t get a star of the game he faced 17 shots in the 3rd period and 42 the entire game…pretty impressive. Nash and Chimera did however. Nash’s first ever short-handed goal.