The Jackets stopped being cute and started being forceful. A 3-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers before a beyond-capacity crowd of 18,402 in Nationwide Arena was stunning on a few different levels, but especially this: the Jackets out-Flyered the Flyers.

Andrew Murray, Manny Malhotra and Jan Hejda -- two plumbers and a stay-at-home defenseman -- scored the goals, and rookie goaltender Steve Mason made 20 saves for his third shutout of the season.

It was a necessary tonic for a Blue Jackets club that looked so lost and hopeless Tuesday in a 3-0 home loss to Los Angeles, the last game before the Christmas break.

"For us to respond like this was a great job," Malhotra said. "Just to be able to set the tempo and be able to outwork them the whole time was great.

"We put a real emphasis on getting pucks to the net and getting real traffic, as opposed to being on the perimeter and allowing rebounds to just lay there."

Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock rarely addresses the dressing room after a loss, but he did just that after the loss to the Kings.

And then Hitchcock had three days to ponder the Flyers, his former club. For Coach Tinker, this represents a dangerous scenario -- too much time to think.

"We had to get rid of the poor game (vs. L.A.)," Hitchcock said. "We had to get that out of our system. We had not played like that all year.

"Our players felt like they owed it to themselves and especially to the people in the building. We owed them a better performance. We knew that, and we delivered on it."

The Blue Jackets earned their first win over the Flyers -- they were 0-4-3 -- and handed Philadelphia its first shutout in 76 games, including last season's trek to the Eastern Conference finals.

The win, in front of the first sellout since March 16, improved the Blue Jackets to 6-1-1 vs. the East this season.

The Blue Jackets scored twice in the first period, which was very important. So often this season they have dominated the first period and headed into the first intermission with a 0-0 tie.

This time, Hejda scored from the top of the left faceoff circle at 3:22 of the first period, after a mad scramble in front of the net ended with Flyers defenseman Ossi Vaananen clearing the puck off the goal line and right at Hejda.

The Jackets' lead grew to 2-0 with 1:52 left in the period, when Murray buried a loose puck from the slot.

At 7:39 of the second period, Rick Nash saucered a splendid pass to spring Malhotra on a clear look at Flyers goaltender Antero Niittymaki. His roofer made it 3-0.

The rest was up to Mason, who posted his 10th win with only 20 saves. The Jackets allowed only four shots on goal in the third period.

"We're the biggest club in the NHL," defenseman Mike Commodore said. "We're built like this for a reason. We want to play physical.

"We want to force the issue with them when they have the puck. When we do that, we're pretty good. When we don't, we're not."

aportzline@dispatch.com