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Predators continue dominance of Blue Jackets

Nov 13, 2007 - 4:56 AM By Dave Holstein PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ticker) -- The Nashville Predators continued their dominance over the Columbus Blue Jackets with a 4-1 victory Monday.

Columbus and Nashville were playing for the second time in three days with Nashville winning the previous meeting 4-3 at home in a shootout on Saturday.

"I thought we should have won both games" Columbus left wing Jason Chimera said. "We didn't play badly in either game. We were right in there on Saturday and tonight, I thought we played well enough early on but just didn't have it at the end."

J.P. Dumont and Martin Erat each scored a pair of goals for the Predators and G Chris Mason made 20 saves to improve his record to 6-0-1 all time against the Blue Jackets.

"Mason played really good" Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. "I thought he made a couple exceptional saves when the game was close. You are going to win with good goaltending. Look at LeClaire for Columbus, he has been outstanding for Columbus and Mason has been outstanding for us."

Nashville, which got first period goals from Dumont and Erat, is now 8-0-0 when scoring the first goal of the game this season.

Dating to last year, Nashville has defeated Columbus 10 straight games. The Predators won all eight games last season and the first two games of this season. They have also won seven of the last eight times they have visited Nationwide Arena.

"I think the two games this year have been close games" Mason said. "We were fortunate last year and I think we played well the last two games, they did too. Both games could have gone either way and they are going to be a team to be reckoned with this year."

"Every game is different. They have a better team than last year" Erat said. "I think they play good hockey and we just played better today."

The last time Columbus defeated Nashville was April 3, 2006.

"We don't think about that, games that happened last year" Blue Jackets goalie Pascal LeClaire said. "We care about division games. We play them six more times this year so we will concentrate on that and not worry about what happened in the past."

Nashville got on the board first when Dumont redirected a shot from Jason Arnott past Columbus goalie Pascal LeClaire at 6:39 of the opening session.

"On the first goal, I was lucky and I saw the puck along the board and I took it too the net and just put it under the goalie" Erat said.

Columbus answered just 15 seconds later when right wing David Vyborny scored his first goal of the year at 6:54.

Vyborny collected a loose puck off of the boards after it was lost by Nashville defenseman Dan Hamhuis and beat Mason between the pads with a shot from between the face off circles. For Vyborny, it was his first goal since March 7, 2007 a span of 31 games.

Nashville regained the lead on a nice one on one play by Erat. He skated into the zone with the puck and went around Columbus defenseman Rostislav Klesla and beat LeClaire with a backhand from the right slot at 12:33.

Dumont extended the lead to 3-1 with a tally midway through the third period and Erat added an empty net goal with 27 seconds to play.

"I saw Marty had a jump on the puck and I saw Arny (Jason Arnott) behind the net so I just tried to do a quick give and go and it worked for us tonight" Dumont said.

After beginning the season 2-6, Nashville is 7-1-1 in its last nine games including 3-0-1 in its last four games, all against Central Division opponents.

"When things happen at the beginning of the season, people jump a little too soon" Mason said. "It's new and you are in last place but one or two good weeks and you are back in it. We have had a couple of good weeks and now we are back in the playoff hunt."

The Blue Jackets have now lost four in a row after going 5-0-1 their previous six games. They are currently 1-3-1 in their last five games, all against Central Division opponents.

"Our execution has been poor, we have been struggling to make 10-foot passes and we had a lot of tired players out there today" Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock said. That is not normally how we play or how we played at the start of the season. It's disappointing for everybody and we have to step back up."