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Game No. 14

Posted Nov 6, 2011 by Aaron Portzline | 0 comments

This post will be brief. It will take as long to read this as it took the Philadelphia Flyers to decide tonight's game against the Blue Jackets. If you missed it, you didn't miss much. The final was 9-2 Flyers before 19,874 in Wells Fargo Center.

If Blue Jackets fans thought the bottom had arrived with Thursday's 4-1 loss to Toronto, they were rudely corrected. This was not the largest margin of defeat in the franchise history of the Blue Jackets, but it's hard to recall an uglier, less respectable performance put forth by the boys.

The Flyers led 5-0 after one period and 8-0 after two periods. The Blue Jackets surrendered more odd-man rushes -- I'll guess 12, conservatively -- than most clubs give up in a month.

“We’ve hit a lot of bottoms this year,” Blue Jackets coach Scott Arniel said, “and this is another big one.”
 
Any club that suffers a 9-2 thumping to fall to 2-11-1 should be prepared for changes, be that a message-sending trade, the firing of a coach or the firing of a general manager. So it is with the Blue Jackets, who are threatening to play their way out of a season that once opened with such promise.
 
“It’s tough to take,” Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash said. “Guys are embarrassed for the effort we put out for the coach and coaching staff, and management. It’s just not good enough.
“It’s undisciplined hockey. We’re getting caught with three guys deep. Coach and staff informed us. It’s just poorly executed.”
 
The Blue Jackets have four days off before their next game, which will only heighten speculation that a change -- or changes -- are in the offing. Asked if he were concerned about his future, Arniel said: "Nice question, all right. Nice question. I'm not in charge of that. I'm worred about what I have to do tomorrow with this hockey team."
 
GM Scott Howson was expected to be in Wells Fargo Center for the game tonight, but he was not to be found in the dressing room after the game.
 
Goaltender Steve Mason gave up a goal on the first shot of the game and was given the hook only 13:09 into the game after giving up three goals on 12 shots. For those of you who love to flame Mason, flame away. Thursday's 4-1 loss to Toronto was definitely on No. 1's shoulders, but he was the victim tonight of a slew of mind-numbing breakdowns.
 
Only 98 seconds into the game, James Van Riemsdyk was left all alone in the lower third of the left faceoff circle and had able time to size up Mason before beating him stickside from about 12 feet away. Barely 90 seconds later, a Jaromir Jagr centering pass from the left wall went into the net off Fedor Tyutin's skate or stick. At 13:09, Max Talbot got behind Blue Jackets defensemen Grant Clitsome and Aaron Johnson for a clean look at Mason. He beat him five-hole.
 
Mason was pulled for rookie Allen York, but then went back into the game to start the second period. He finished with 21 saves on 28 shots, while York had three saves on five shots. It was a brutal night to man the nets for Columbus.
 
“(Mason) could probably look at the rest of his teammates tonight,” Arniel said, “because I don’t think they gave either one of those goaltenders much of a chance.”
 
The lowlight of the night -- and one can only shake their head to imagine how this happens -- was a 3-on-1 shorthanded rush the Flyers used to make it 6-0 early in the second. Yes, that's a right: a 3-on-1 short-handed rush.
 
“It was unbelievable,” center Sammy Pahlsson said, speaking in general terms about all the odd-man rushes the Blue Jackets allowed. “They had 3-on-2s the entire … I don’t know how many they had.
 
Derek Dorsett and Clitsome had third-period goals for the Jackets, who outshot the Flyers 21-6 in the final 20 minutes to at least make the shot counter look respectable.

Side dishes:

-- The Blue Jackets will gather at 10 a.m. in Nationwide Arena on Sunday. Pretty sure they had a schedule off day, but it's unclear if they're gathering to practice -- as they did earlier in the season -- or just meeting. The next game is Thursday vs. Chicago in Nationwide.

-- Jeff Carter missed his ninth straight game with a fractured right foot, and Philly TV cameras tracked him down and showed him frequently sitting in a private box inside Wells Fargo. Meanwhile, on the ice, Jake Voracek had his best night as a Flyer (1-2-3, plus 2) and Sean Couturier, the player the Flyers drafted with the No. 8 pick Columbus sent them, had two goals and a plus-2 rating. If that doesn't just sum up the night ...

-- The two most lopsided losses in Blue Jackets history were both by eight goals, and both in the 2001-02 season. The Jackets lost 10-2 in San Jose and 8-0 to Boston that season.

-- Mason gave up a goal on the first shot of the game for a second straight outing. He's now given up a goal on the opponent's first four shots in 10 of his 13 starts.

-- The Blue Jackets have dropped 12 in a row on the road (0-10-2), two short of a franchise record.

-- The Jackets are 27-41-14 (68 points) in their last 82 games, the equivalent of a season. Can't remember who asked me to provide this stat, but there it is. That's No. 1 overall pick material.

-- Left my phone charger in the Philadelphia press box. Nice night.

-- Aaron Portzline

aportzline@dispatch.com

twitter: @aportzline

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