Blue Jackets @ Flames, 8PM MT, RSN West

So, quite the game last night. The Jackets have nice depth, and worked the Oil pretty good on a shift-by-shift basis. But while Rick Nash's nice plays went slightly awry (or, notably, were muffed in the slot by Malhotra), Ales Hemsky's worked out, and yes that's understating it. Dennis pretty much pegs it in the Lowetide game thread:

I honestly can't think of another time when a guy single-handedly lifted us like he did tonight. He set up 71 perfectly, he schooled Mason, he hauled Mason out of the net to the point where 37 had basically an open net and then he strolls down the slot like he has all the time in the world and if the fucker stopped time and placed the puck with his hand, it wouldn't have been any better situated.
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To keep on the Hall and Oates theme, tonight the Oilers were a Rich Girl who relied on the old man's money (Hemsky)

I'm still a C-Bus believer, but tonight seems like an awfully good time to take advantage of them. At home, with the opponent (including the goalie) playing the 2nd half of a B2B. And Huselius is hurt to boot.

A sidebar from last night's game: Quinn & DeBrusk, as well as a score of LT commenters, were pretty peeved about Jared Boll initiating contract with Roloson partway through the 3rd. If you didn't see it, it was one of those deals where Boll was just off the doorstep, Staios crosschecked him in the back, and Boll embellished, basically pushing off with his leg into Roloson.

It's a bit of a bad example, but I'm going to make my point anyway: why do defensemen do this? It's one of those things that make me scoff when someone suggests that we need players to be able to police themselves, because when it comes to protecting their goaltenders, players are terrible at it. How often do we see a player check somebody into their own goalie? Every 2nd game?

It's mostly guys like Staios, Vandermeer, & Willie Mitchell, but there's plenty of them: guys who are clearly willing to risk injuring their own tender in order to inflict a bit of pain on someone in (or next to) the crease. It's baffling, particularly when their goalie has the puck frozen already -- are they coached to do this? Are they coached not to, but just do it anyway? And during play, if you're willing to take a penalty to prevent a scoring chance, why not hold the guy instead of bombing him into your most vulnerable player?

I'm being an all-Canadian tonight (curling @ 845), so I'll likely be missing most of the game. Here's hoping that the lads score a quick couple and then turn it into a snoozefest.

Calgary 3 (Iginla x3)
Columbus 1 (Peca!)

Go Flames.