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Trio lifts Blue Jackets past Blackhawks

Nov 15, 2007 - 3:52 AM COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ticker) -- When the circus is in town, the Chicago Blackhawks' fortunes tend to go south.

That trend continued on Wednesday as Rick Nash, Sergei Fedorov and Jason Chimera each had a goal and an assist to lead the Columbus Blue Jackets to a 4-2 victory over the Blackhawks in a battle of Central Division rivals.

Chicago fell to 4-18-2 over the last five seasons during its annual November road trip that is caused by the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus, which takes over the United Center. The loss also snapped both the Blackhawks' three-game winning streak and the Blue Jackets' four-game skid.

"You want to get off to a good start on any road trip, and tonight we didn't," Chicago coach Denis Savard said. "The good thing about hockey is that you get right back at it tomorrow night. We need to bring our emotion back up and play the kind of game we know we can, because we've showed in the past we can."

Defenseman Duncan Keith started Chicago on a positive note when he opened the scoring 12:24 into the first period.

Blue-liner Brent Seabrook had possession of the puck inside the left faceoff circle and attempted to feed rookie Patrick Kane in front of the net. The pass never reached its intended target, however, as Columbus defenseman Jan Hejda deflected it out to the high slot.

Keith settled the puck and blasted a shot past a screened Pascal Leclaire for his third goal of the season.

Nash leveled the game just under two minutes later.

Fedorov gained the offensive zone and blasted a shot from inside the blue line. Patrick Lalime made the save, but Nash corralled the rebound and beat the backup netminder from close range for his team-leading 12th goal.

"The puck just came to me and I was able to get a good angle on the goal and put it in," Nash said.

Nash set up Columbus' second tally exactly one minute into the second period.

The first overall pick in the 2002 draft, Nash had possession of the puck in the left circle. After weaving his way into the slot, Nash fed captain Adam Foote, who wristed a shot that Fedorov tipped between the legs of a screened Lalime to give the Blue Jackets a 2-1 lead.

"All I know is I tipped the puck," Fedorov said. "I saw Adam take the shot and got my stick down and I heard the crowd go nuts and I knew it was in. It was a high kind of tip."

Dan Fritsche made it a two-goal cushion midway through the period.

Chimera raced up the left wing and stopped in the faceoff circle before backhanding a feed to Fritsche in the slot. The Parma, Ohio native then beat Lalime over his right shoulder to give Columbus a 3-1 advantage.

"It was a nice pass from Chimer," Fritsche said. "He put it right on my tape and I was able to get it up and in the net."

Chimera scored the Blue Jackets' fourth consecutive goal midway through the third period. The 28-year-old raced up the left wing before blasting a shot from just outside the left circle over the right shoulder of Lalime to give Columbus a three-goal bulge.

"I had an opening and a lot of ice in front of me, and I tried to put everything into the shot - it kept rising and went over the goalie," Chimera said. "It was a nice goal and gave us a little breathing room."

Defenseman Dustin Byfuglien tallied with 2:31 remaining for Chicago.

Nash capped his "Gordie Howe hat trick" by fighting Blackhawks blue-liner Jim Vandermeer as time expired.

"You could probably count on one hand the number of times that has happened to me," Nash said. "It's not a big deal. Guys like (Jody) Shelley and Boller (Jared Boll) do it every night, so it's really not that big of a deal to me."

Leclaire stopped 16 shots, while Lalime finished with 17 saves.

"It was a good game, I thought we battled hard," Nash said. "The team played well and Pazzy (Leclaire) played great again. It was an overall good game, I thought."