Rangers 3, Blue Jackets 2 (OT): Nash’s heroics wasted in defeat
Captain’s goal forces overtime, but New York capitalizes for win
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Puck Rakers
A blog about the Blue Jackets and the NHL
One Signed, Two Set Free
The Blue Jackets have agreed to terms with defenseman Austin Madaisky on a three-year, entry-level contract, and the official deal should be announced shortly. Madaisky was a fifth-round pick (No. 124 overall) in the 2010 NHL entry draft.
Two other picks - right winger Petr Straka (2nd round, No. 55) and defenseman Brandon Archibald (4th round, No. 94) - have been informed by the Blue Jackets that they won't be signed, sending them back in the pool of draftable players for next month's draft in Pittsburgh.
Of those two, Straka is the mild surprise.
He had 28-36-64 in 62 games with Rimouski (QMJHL) during his draft year, but tailed off badly the last two seasons. In 2010-11, he had 10-15-25 in 41 games. This season, he had 18-19-37 in 54 games. That's fewer points the last two seasons -- 62 in 95 games -- than he scored as a 17-year-old.
However, Straka made a pretty good last-best argument for a deal with his performance in the QMJHL playoffs. He had 10-12-22 in 21 games, becoming a point-a-game player once again. The bet here is that he gets drafted his June, but certainly on Saturday (2nd through 7th rounds) and probably later in the day.
The Blue Jackets acquired the pick used on Straka with the 2010 trade deadline deal that sent winger Raffi Torres to Buffalo.
Madaisky, meanwhile, blossomed this season in his fourth year of juniors, the last three spent with Kamloops (WHL). He had 13 goals, 37 assists, 50 points and a plus-20 rating, all career highs. He also had 87 penalty minutes. He could play a fifth year of junior next season, or begin his pro career, likely with AHL Springfield.
Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson and the hockey operations department face one last difficult decision as it pertains to the 2010 draft class. Goaltender Mathieu Corbeil remains unsigned, and the Jackets still aren't sure if they want to keep him in the fold.
"We'll evaluate him in the Memorial Cup and make a decision," Howson said. "Not sure right now."
Corbeil is 50-11-2 in the last two seasons with Saint John of the QMJHL, which won the Memorial Cup last season and is a favorite to repeat. Corbeil, named the QMJHL's goalie of the year, is 16-0-1 in this year's playoffs, with a 2.18 goals-against average and .917 save percentage.
Those numbers will cause many readers to scratch their temples and wonder: "How could they possibly not want this guy?" What the Blue Jackets are trying to determine is if Corbeil is a product of a powerhouse hockey club or a goaltender with legitimiate NHL potential. These are the questions that keep scouts up late at night.
Two weeks ago, the Blue Jackets seemed to be leaning away from signing Corbeil. These days it seems to be leaning back the other direction, though no decision has been made.
-- Aaron Portzline
twitter: @aportzline
NEW YORK — Yesterday was a fine day to be a sports fan in the Big Apple.
First, the Knicks dispatched the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks in a Madison Square Garden matinee. Linsanity reigned as Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin — Gotham’s latest superhero — had 28 points and a career-high 14 assists.
Then the Garden was cleared and iced for the Eastern Conference-leading Rangers, the lowly Blue Jackets and a capacity crowd of blue-shirted fans.
The Rangers didn’t exactly put on a command performance in the late show, but they did enough to defeat the Blue Jackets 3-2 in overtime.
With goalie Steve Mason on the bench for an extra skater, Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash tied the score at 2 with a shot from the top of the circle that sizzled past the glove of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist with 1:33 left in regulation.
Rangers center Derek Stepan scored the winner 22 seconds into overtime.
Brad Richards and Artem Anisimov also scored for the Rangers and Derick Brassard for the Blue Jackets, and it looked for a moment that Nash, the subject of trade talks, might have been the man of the match. But overtime ended quickly when Stepan took a sweet pass from defenseman Michael Del Zotto and scored to Mason’s backside.
Between Garden games, while bootleg Lin jerseys were still being hawked outside, Nash was made available to the New York media to discuss the possibility of a trade to the Rangers, reportedly one of the teams most interested in his services.
Nash, the Jackets’ franchise player, got a taste of what might await him if he is traded to a major market.
“No comment,” Nash said three times in response to questions from a group of about two dozen reporters.
Would playing in a media hotbed such as New York be agreeable to the soft-spoken, low-key Nash? How has he handled the scrutiny of being far and away the hottest commodity on the trade market?
“I played in the Olympics a couple times, so this is really nothing compared to that,” Nash said. “But it’s fun.
“I just worry about today. Right now, I’m a Blue Jacket and that’s what matters. I’m dealing with a game I’m playing in two hours.”
Oh yes, the game.
The Rangers wavered in the final two periods but did nothing to dispel their status as a Stanley Cup contender, with or without Nash.
“We don’t need you,” a raucous fellow near the press box bellowed at Nash shortly after the opening faceoff.
“We don’t want you,” several thousand fans chanted after Nash scored the tying goal.
Richards scored at 17:49 of the first to give New York a 1-0 lead. The Rangers improved to 28-1-2 in games in which they scored first.
Several of the Blue Jackets seemed more ready to take two off the first tee than take on the Rangers during a first period in which they struggled to clear the puck and registered all of four shots.
But Brassard, playing the point on a power play, tied the score at 1 with a slap shot from the blue line at 5:26 of the second.
“We got our legs back,” Brassard said. “That power play got us going.”
Anisimov made it 2-1 later in the period when he swooped into the crease to bury the rebound of an errant slap shot by defenseman Dan Girardi that took a wild bounce off the glass behind Mason.
Del Zotto appeared to make it 3-1 when TV replays showed he scored with one-tenth of a second left in the second period, but the goal was waved off when it was determined that the official clock of the video goal judge showed that time had expired when the puck crossed the goal line.
smitchell@dispatch.com
