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It has been a long grind for Columbus Blue Jackets fans. Ever since the year 2000, when Ron Tugnutt was tending the pipes, the good people of Ohio have been anxiously waiting for their Blue Jackets to make a post-season appearance. Years passed, and the Blue Jackets threatened a few times, but inevitably faded down the stretch, and every year the club was on the outside looking in when curtain closed on the 82nd game of the regular season. This futility was further put under the microscope when the Atlanta Thrashers made the playoffs two years ago. The Thrashers were quickly shown the door in a 4-0 sweep by the New York Rangers, but despite the quick exit the Thrashers' brief post-season appearance left the Jackets as the only active team to never appear in the Stanley Cup playoffs. However, it is looking increasingly likely that this will be the year that Columbus can finally cast away that particular badge of shame.

After a dominating 5-0 win over the Calgary Flames last night the Jackets are currently comfortably ensconced in 6th place in the competitive Western Conference, 5 points up on their nearest competitors in Anaheim and Nashville, and 6 points clear of the highest non-playoff team, the Edmonton Oilers. Now, a 6 point gap between making the playoffs or not mightn't seem that comfortable, but compared to the logjam that's been the Western Conference playoff race for the past month 6 points is a veritable country mile. That being said, Columbus cannot afford to take their foot off the pedal as ground can quickly be made up in this era of 3 point games.

So who is responsible for potentially ending this almost decade-long playoff drought? Well, coach Ken Hitchcock, one of the game's brightest minds, certainly deserves some credit. The defensive system he has instilled is almost impossible for opposing teams to crack. Rick Nash, the only pure offensive star on the Jackets, has already set a career high with points with 71, a very impressive total considering he really doesn't have much of anything in the way of offensive help on this team. As good as both Hitchcock and Nash have been, however, the credit for the Blue Jackets' success can be laid squarely at the feet of one boy man: goaltender Steve Mason.

Mason, a 20 year old rookie who didn't even start the season with the big club, certainly hasn't squandered the chance he got when former #1 Pascal Leclaire went down with an injury. He has been stellar throughout the season, and his shutout last night against Calgary was his 10th of the season, best in the league, and also the 2nd highest total in NHL history for a rookie goaltender behind only the legendary Tony Esposito's 15 donut performance in his inaugural year.

If Mason can avoid wilting under the pressure of the stretch drive then there is every reason to believe that Columbus fans will finally get their chance to watch their club in the playoffs come April. And with Hitchcock at the helm, a hungry Nash finally getting his first taste of the post-season, and a brick wall in goal look for the Jackets to make a much more significant impact than the Thrashers did in '07.

Wow, quite the controversy going on today in the state of Ohio. This morning when I was posting my daily NHL 3 stars feature I made reference to how the Blue Jackets came out on the wrong side of a controversial call last night against the Dallas Stars. On a whim I embedded a link to a YouTube video of the incident in question and included a poll asking readers to weigh in on whether they thought the NHL made the right call in disallowing Manny Malhotra's apparent overtime winner.

Video Of Manny Malhotra's Disallowed Goal

A couple of hours after putting up the post I checked my traffic stats like any good obsessive blogger, and was surprised to discover a steady stream of traffic coming from HFBoards.com. Curious to see what was going on I followed the link back to a thread titled The OFFICIAL Let's burn down the War Room in Toronto thread. I had a chuckle over that, and then proceeded to comb through to find where my traffic was coming from. It turns out one of the members of the forum had stumbled across my poll and had posted a link in the forum, prompting other Blue Jackets fans to surf over and cast their vote.

Since then I've been following the thread with interest, and people continue to trickle over and vote. At the time of this posting the count is now 42-0 that Malhotra and his Blue Jackets teammates were screwed out of a victory last night.

However those 42 represent only a small percentage of the traffic on the thread itself. There are legions of angry Blue Jackets fans venting their rage over the botched call. To be quite honest, the thread was a bit of an eye opener for me, but one that has left me with a very positive impression on the state of the game of hockey.

Here in Canada hockey is a religion for most of us. We were weaned on the sport, and ever since our childhood we've eaten, slept and breathed hockey. For the good people of Ohio the same cannot be said. Though I'm sure they are as diehard as any sports fans in North America, they did not get an NHL franchise until 2000 (Yes, I know they had the Barons in the 70s), and have had less than a decade to become knowledgeable and passionate about the sport. Well, they've gotten up to speed in a hurry in the past 8+ years, and I am ecstatic to see the support that exists for the Blue Jackets franchise. I realize that this is just a small yet vociferous minority, but they are representative of the city's sentiment towards their NHL team. If they get this pissed off at the 30 game mark of the season imagine the firestorm should the NHL make the same call in game 82 with a playoff spot on the line.

I've always questioned the NHL's aggressive expansion into the US market. With the American love for NFL football, NBA basketball, and Major League Baseball it seemed to me that little time, passion or interest would be left over for NHL Hockey. I'm happy to discover that, at least in the case of Columbus, Ohio, I was dead wrong. I still have my doubts that such fervor exists in all US markets, and with the current economic climate the NHL may yet lose some fringe franchises (particularly if the NHL keeps aggravating their fan base by making bad calls), but I think most will survive the storm.

I feel for you Columbus fans. We Canadians know what it's like to have so much emotion riding on the outcome of a game, and when our team gets cheated out of a hard-earned victory we feel it almost as strongly as the athletes involved. I'm glad to see there are at least some south of the border who feel the same.

Wow, the snipers were at it again last night, and though there was a shutout and a few 2-1 games, there were also games that featured a boatload of goals (Toronto vs Boston anyone?). Phil Kessel picked up 2 goals and an assist to continue his point streak, now at 16 games. Evgeni Malkin had another 4 points to widen his lead atop the scoring race, and Brad Richards had a goal, three assists and a shootout goal to help Dallas prevail in a controversial game over Columbus. Yet none of these great performances got the athletes involved a spot on our NHL 3 stars list. Yes, competition was fierce last night. So who did make the cut? Read on to find out.

3rd Star - Loui Eriksson - A controversial game in Dallas last night to be sure. The Columbus Blue Jackets felt they won the game when Manny Malhotra scored in overtime to give the Jackets what appeared to be a 6-5 win. The refs called it a goal on the ice, but the so-called experts in Toronto got involved and overturned the call. The Stars went on to win the game in a shootout. All the controversy doesn't detract from the performance of Loui Eriksson though. The winger continued his surprising play, netting a hat trick to help his team overcome more shaky goaltending from Marty Turco and get the controversial victory.

2nd Star - Pavel Datsyuk - It is scary just how good the Detroit Red Wings are. Here they sit with a 21-6-4 record, despite questionable defensive play, shaky goaltending, and the fact that stars Datsyuk and Zetterberg sit 23rd and 31st in league scoring respectively. Will anybody be able to stop them once the winged wheel gets oiled up and begins working at full efficiency? If last night's game against the powerful San Jose Sharks was any indication the answer is a resounding no. Pavel Datsyuk was at his slick stickhandling best last night, scoring 2 goals and adding 2 assists as the Wings pounded the Sharks in a statement game that may be a preview to this spring's Western Conference final.

1st Star - David Krejci - Everything is going right for the Boston Bruins these days. Goaltender Tim Thomas is a Vezina candidate, Phil Kessel has finally come into his own, Milan Lucic is swiftly turning into the 2nd coming off Cam Neely, and the always underrated Marc Savard now sits 4th in NHL scoring. That should be enough for any team, shouldn't it? Well, the Bruins have another ace up their sleeve. Sophomore David Krejci has been on fire of late with 8 points in his last 3 games, and he is now averaging better than a point a game with 32 points in 31 games so far this season. Krejci continued his spectacular play last night, torching the Toronto Maple Leafs for 3 goals, including a highlight reel special that should get plenty of play on SportsCenter. Whether Krejci can keep up this pace remains to be seen, but if he can then the Bruins' depth of scoring forwards, combined with their stingy defense will make it almost impossible for anyone in the Eastern Conference to stop them.

Here is the video footage of the disallowed goal in the Columbus Dallas game. Do you think the goal should have counted? Cast your vote below:

[poll id="5"]