No Late-Game Magic This Time As Flyers Lose To Blue Jackets 6-3
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ryan Johansen and R.J. Umberger each scored two goals and the Columbus Blue Jackets pulled away in the third period to beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3 on Saturday night.
The game came 48 hours after the Blue Jackets led 3-0 after two periods and 4-2 with 5 minutes left inPhiladelphia, with the Flyers scoring five times in the final period in a 5-4 win.
David Savard had a goal and an assist and Boone Jenner also scored, while Nikita Nikitin and Corey Tropp each had two assists for the Blue Jackets, who said they were humiliated by the Thursday collapse.
Wayne Simmonds had two goals and Sean Couturier also scored for the Flyers.
Tempering the victory was the loss of Blue Jackets forward Marian Gaborik, who broke a collarbone in the first period and is out indefinitely.
This time the Blue Jackets watched a 2-0 lead vanish in 20 seconds late in the second period, but Columbus took control at the outset of the third.
Savard took a pass from Nikitin at the 3:36 mark, adjusted to avoid a defender and then slid a rising shot from the right point that beat Ray Emery high on the stick side.
Just over 2 minutes later, Savard returned the favor by passing to Nikitin at the left point. His shot, with the Flyers slow to flow back into position, was redirected by Jenner in the slot to push the lead to two.
Johansen, who had opened the scoring, then flicked a wrister past Emery on a 2-on-1 break to make it 5-2 with 7:38 left.
Curtis McElhinney, victimized for all the goals on Thursday night, made the lead stand up with 33 saves.
The Blue Jackets, much like the earlier meeting, got off to a good start only to lose it.
At the 10:43 mark of the first period, Gaborik, just back after missing 17 games with a sprained left knee, got off a shot that was pushed aside by Emery. Nick Foligno collected the puck along the back wall and skated to the other side of the cage where he fed Johansen, who lifted a shot from the right doorstep for his 13th of the year.
Gaborik, sandwiched between Braydon Coburn and Zac Rinaldo on his shot, got up slowly and immediately skated off the ice to the dressing room. The club announced between periods that the veteran, with 341 goals and 345 assists in 686 games, had a broken collarbone and would be out indefinitely.
Columbus went up 2-0 at the 14:29 mark of the second — just 8 seconds after Mark Streit went off for hooking — when James Wisniewski's hard slap shot from the right point was redirected by Umberger into the net.
The Blue Jackets came an inch from going up 3-0 late in the period before things went south.
At the end of a Philadelphia power play, Brandon Dubinsky skated down the right wing and wristed a shot at the dot that beat Emery. It hit the crossbar, skimmed across to the far post and then rattled away.
The Flyers gained the puck and roared down the ice on a 3-on-2. Simmonds pulled up and carried the puck to the high slot before wristing a shot that beat McElhinney at the 17:40 mark.
Just 20 seconds later, Matt Read's pass from the short boards skipped past three Blue Jackets to Couturier, whose high shot from the right corner of the net knotted things.
Both teams made major roster moves in the past two days to add three key veterans.
Flyers GM Paul Holmgren announced just before the game that Vincent Lecavalier would play, ending a string of nine games missed with a displaced fracture in his back.
The Blue Jackets added Gaborik and Wisniewski (upper body, out six games) on Friday. Gaborik had five goals and seven assists this year in 18 games.
Notes: Philadelphia also announced just before the game that D Nicklas Grossman (flu) would be out and that RW Steve Downie would miss 7-10 days (upper body). ... Early in the game, fans were chanting, "We want Mason!" — calling for the Flyers top goalie, Steve Mason, a former Blue Jacket. But Emery got the start. ... Columbus lost LW Matt Calvert (upper body) in the 2nd period. He did not return. ... The Flyers Erik Gustafsson went off with a left knee injury after a third-period collision with Columbus' Corey Tropp. ... Referee Dan O'Rourke, kicked in the chest by a skate in the first period, left the ice after Johansen's goal and did not return. ... Before Wisniewski's return, the Blue Jackets four highest-paid players were sidelined.
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