Shutout over Blue Jackets keeps road trip on track
Chad Johnson silenced the cannon.
The Calgary Flames’ masked man stifled what had been the NHL’s second-highest scoring attack — and their deafening goal celebration — in Wednesday’s 2-0 shutout victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.
“I think everybody gets pretty startled when they hear that thing go off. It’s a pretty loud boom,” Johnson said after his 34-save goose egg. “And they’ve put up some goals this year, for sure, and that thing has gone off a lot. But the win is the most important thing. The shutout is just the icing on the cake.”
The Blue Jackets own the NHL’s best power-play stats and had been averaging 3.29 snipes per night, but there was no boom Wednesday.
Just a smattering of boos, in fact, from the home crowd after their boys were blanked for the first time this season.
It wasn’t the most entertaining contest of the campaign, but that’s exactly the way the road team wanted it and Johnson and his supporting cast didn’t allow the hosts — or the cannon operator — to get too fired up.
“There were times when we were on our heels, but I think we still stuck together. We still battled as a group,” Johnson said. “I saw pucks when I needed to. Guys did a good job with that and cleared rebounds. The shot clock (34-20) looked like what it did, but I thought we battled and they just throw everything at the net.
“We grinded it out. That’s just your prototypical road win.”
Johnson’s finest work included an early flash of his left pad to deny Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno from close range and a good bit of glove work on Cam Atkinson’s breakaway opportunity in the second.
At the other end, Troy Brouwer and Micheal Ferland each scored for the Flames (9-12-1) to ensure his efforts didn’t go to waste.
“It’s easy to play when you know that if you make a mistake, your goalie is going to be there,” Brouwer said. “Sometimes, we make mistakes and they’re back-door tap-ins, but we’ve really been trying to focus on that and making sure that if we do make mistakes, we’re keeping them to the outside and not letting them get Grade A opportunities. They had a couple good looks, but Chad made some good saves and guys did a good job of blocking shots, collapsing.
“And if there was a shot that got through, there wasn’t second opportunities and there wasn’t the loose change around the net. Guys were clearing it out and living to continue fighting in that shift.”
Flames winger Kris Versteeg returned to the lineup after missing nine consecutive contests with a groin injury and provided a highlight-reel setup on Brouwer’s second-period strike. Versteeg dipsy-doodled around Blue Jackets defenceman Seth Jones with a nifty between-the-legs move, then put a backhand pass right on Brouwer’s tape as he arrived on the doorstep.
The Flames provided a bit more run support for Johnson on a thirdperiod power play, ending a fourgame funk on the man advantage.
Dennis Wideman created a turnover with a poke-check on a daring pinch at the blue-line with Ferland collecting the loose puck and sizzling a low shot past Sergei Bobrovsky from the slot. Johnson took care of the rest. The 30-year-old puck stopper has been superb all season, posting a 6-3-1 record, 2.08 goals-against average and .922 save percentage in 10 starts.
So it wasn’t a surprise that he was sharp again Wednesday in Columbus.
What was more shocking was the Flames actually tickled twine on the man advantage — Ferland’s marker upped their league-worst success rate to 9.4 per cent — and were perfect on the penalty kill, another problem area.
“I thought (Johnson) just played fantastic,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan. “And you look at our specialty teams tonight — we got one power-play goal, we killed off four penalties against a team that is running at the top of the league, I think we only gave up three or four shots … It came down to a specialty teams game and we’re still working at that area, but it was good for us tonight.”
After Wednesday’s win, the Flames beetled to Boston for a Black Friday clash with the Bruins (5:30 p.m. MT, Sportsnet West/ Sportsnet 960 The Fan), the fourth stop of their six-game road trip.