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Hell yea!!
By Bethany | January 13, 2008
I think Fritsche really had one of the best quotes about the game:
“It’s hard enough playing Nashville on a good day’s rest. They’re one of the hardest working teams in the league. They came in here with a lot of rest, they hadn’t played in a few days and they were ready to go. Us playing back-to-back, we had some tired guys but everyone sucked it up. We knew we had to give everything we had because we knew how big these four points were. Even going into the shootout, we said we needed these points. The guys that went, they had a lot on their backs and they came through for us.”
So, after a long long time we finally did it. In case you’re wondering what that links to, it’s some kid singing the ‘We did it’ song from Dora the Explorer, lay off I couldn’t think of anything better to link to. Now, let’s talk about this win, it was a HUGE win for the Blue Jackets. It looked grim at first with the Predators getting on the board first. Then in the third period Nikolai Zherdev made a great play and stole the puck from the Preds and passed it to Rusty Klesla, who then beat Chris Mason.
The game went into overtime, it wasn’t looking good for the Jackets who had played the night before. I was sitting on the edge of my seat just staring at the television waiting. Leclaire made a few amazing saves in overtime, and then we took it to a shootout. I was still confident we were going to win, I had the feeling coming out of the game on Friday, but the Jackets do not do well in shootouts. Nikolai Zherdev went first for the Blue Jackets and made a beautiful shot to beat Mason. It ended up being the only goal of the shootout, and Leclaire turned aside all three Nashville shooters and we won the game. I couldn’t believe it, it finally after a TWELVE game losing spree to the Preds we beat them. It was fabulous. Of course my deal with Jesus was that if we won, I would go to church, so this morning I woke up and took my little butt to church, like a good girl.
Nikolai Zherdev was absolutely amazing again tonight and is now only two points behind Rick Nash for the team lead in points. Ken Hitchcock had this to say about Zherdev:
“We needed someone to step up and he stepped up yesterday and did it again today. Right now, this is a lot of games in a row where he’s stepped up and made good account of himself when we’ve needed him the most. Your best players have to be your best players at this time of the year, especially with so much at stake for everybody.”
Zherdev has been one of our best players this season. As of late he has been the leader on the ice just from his presence and his dominating play. Leclaire was absolutely amazing last night also, so much better than the game against the Blues. Hitch thought so too:
“I think Pazzy gave us a chance (to win). He played better tonight than he did yesterday and we really needed him in the third period and overtime. He gives us a chance to win every night and that’s what you want.”
I am still extremely happy about this win. I can’t get over it, it really gives me hope for the post season, maybe it’s too soon…ok it is too soon, but that’s ok. Also, just an FYI Freddy Mo, Sergei Fedorov, and OK Tollefsen will be practicing tomorrow!!
Jackets fans, we killed Darth Vader last night!! Let’s do it again soon!!
Topics: Nikolai Zherdev, Pascal Leclaire, Nashville Predators, Columbus Blue Jackets |
January 13th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI think Fritsche really had one of the best quotes about the game:. “It’s hard enough playing Nashville on a good day’s rest. They’re one of the hardest working teams in the league. They came in here with a lot of rest, … […]
January 13th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
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January 14th, 2008 at 12:04 am
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