Columbus Blue Jackets posted by Blue Jackets Fan

The team can boast of exceptional talent especially in the middle. Ryan Johansen, Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov are the top three that can help carry the team at the center in the coming season. However, Brandon Dubinsky is going to be out for a considerable period of time.

Dubinsky’s Injury

Brandon Dubinsky is currently undergoing abdominal surgery. This means that he will be out for 6 weeks. He signed a $35 million 6 year contract with the jackets and his absence is be both a disappointment for him and the team. He has shown skill and talent with his performance. He helped the team last season with his 50 points that got him in the third place on the team.

New Talent Ryan Johansen

Ryan Johansen recently signed with the jackets. However, the 6-foot-3 player has recently missed out on training camp and exhibition games as his agent was still negotiating with the team on his behalf. He reportedly was not at his best form on the day he first practiced with his team mates. This has left some of his team mates anxious. However, the Johansen is a talented player who can carry the team through, in the coming season.

Strengthening the Defence

The team has been relying on Jack Johnson for its defence. Even though Ryan Johansen can take care of the center and improve on the Blue Jacket’s depth, there is still room for improvement in the blue Jackets defence.

David Savard is also likely to be paired with Johnson. He got an average of 17:19 on the ice last season. The fact that he spent a lot of time with Johnson on Ice means, that the pair are likely to work towards a better defence this season.  Savard had been underperforming in the previous seasons, but he seems to have worked hard and regained his footing. 

Poor Early Exits Provide Little Experience posted by Jeff Ponder

The Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues entered the 2009 NHL Playoffs with high hopes for their respective teams.  Those thoughts became nothing but a few pipe dreams for their fans and players what seemed like minutes after the playoffs had begun.

St. Louis suffered a series sweep at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday night.  This was a fate that the Blue Jackets faced to the Detroit Red Wings just a short 48 hours later.  Both of these teams felt devastation after they lost in their home arena, which adds much insult to injury to these young teams.

"It's a tough way to lose,” commented Blue Jackets captain Rick Nash. “What can you say? There's 19,000 people. Everyone saw what happened and I don't need to comment on it."

Nash quite possibly had the largest spotlight shine on him in this series.  Being an impact player in Columbus since his rookie season in 2002-03, the 6’4” power forward has accumulated 194 goals and 355 points in 441 career NHL regular season games, but saw his first playoff action in this series.  Nash had 40 goals in the regular season, but scored just one goal and three points in the four-game sweep.  His lone-goal came in game four, when he tipped in a Rostislav Klesla shot early in the second period, which put his team down by just one goal at the time. 

Nash has to be more of a presence if his team wants to succeed in the future.  Red Wings’ coach Mike Babcock played Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk nearly every time Nash was on the ice, which was detrimental in shutting him down.  But Nash rose above tough coverage all season; his play was not effective in this series.
Continue reading "Poor Early Exits Provide Little Experience"

Another Win for the Pens posted by Kevin Thomas

Normally, I would expect the Penguins to beat the Blue Jackets. But even with the Penguins having won their last game there hasn't been much reason to be certain of anything this sseason. Thankfully, for the sake of my sanity and surely that of many others, the Pens played the way the were expected to going into ths season and soundly handled the BJ's.

The main reason for this win, although the offense played great getting contributions from everyone you'd expect and some you wouldn't, was Marc-Andre Fleury. In a scoreless first period Fleury made several noteworth savesand kept Columbus off the board when theycould easily have been up two or more goals. This brilliance and a timely powerplay opportunity in the second open the door for the Pens to open a three goal lead.

Of course, in the recent past even a lead of this size has left Pens fans worrying but tonight the Pns did what any respectable professional sports team would do. They did give up one powerplay goal but otherwise they shut theirn opponent down. This convincing win could not have come at a better time with huge games looming in the next week against Detroit and San Jos, the number 2 and 3 teams in the league respectively. With these challenges ahead, hopefully the Pens have finally righted the ship.  

Where is the Love for Mason? posted by Jeff Ponder

When 20 year-old Steve Mason was named as the WJC MVP and the tournament’s top goalie in early 2008, the bar was set high for the youngster.  Leading Canada to a Gold Medal that tournament, the 6’3” goaltender has risen above and beyond those standards.  Posting a league-best .934 save percentage and being tied for first in the league with five shutouts through 23 games, he is pretty much a shoe-in for the 2009 NHL All-Star Game, right?  Wrong.

Mason was snubbed for Anaheim Duck J.S. Giguere (voted as the starter by the fans), Minnesota’s Niklas Backstrom and Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo.  Giguere gets the fan-favorite vote, and Backstrom has been stellar between the pipes for his club, posting a 2.14 GAA, which places him fourth in the league.  But Roberto Luongo has seen limited play this season after suffering a groin injury which has had him sidelined since November 22nd.  Even though Luongo is very talented, it is almost an insult to choose him over rookie Steve Mason.

Luongo had an All-Star caliber season before his injury, but the league cannot overlook Mason.  “We’re really building off of Mason, he’s been great,” stated team captain and All-Star Rick Nash, “Anything can happen when you have a hot goalie. It can carry you a long way.”

“If you’re going to win in this league you need to have a goalie who gives you a chance to win,” added Columbus Head Coach Ken Hitchcock.

The NHL has always tried to have every team represented in the All-Star Game, and this year was no different.  The lone representative for Columbus is Nash, who has notched 17 goals for his club, which puts him in a four-man tie for 20th in the league.  He has added 22 assists and 39 points.  While these are strong numbers, Mason probably would have been the stronger pick if only one player were to represent the Blue Jackets. 

Inbound link contest winner announced! posted by Earn Money Blogging

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the "Inbound Link Contest".  We have a winner!  A big congratulations go out to Marija.  Thank you for all your hard work on this.  While we had a lot of people participate, Marija was able to win with only 4 links!  So it wouldn't have taken a lot to win this contest!  We'll be having another contest soon so stay tuned.

The whole purpose of this contest was to get our bloggers networking with other webmasters and to start to build up their inbound links which will help their traffic.  Even a few links can help you with the search engines as they will see you as more of an authority on your topic the more inbound links you have.

To learn more about marketing your blog check out this post: http://www.nbabasketballonline.com/sports_content-rev_share_faq.html#my_faq_2971

Marija's blog can be found here.  If you're a Knicks fan, check it out: http://www.newyorkknicksnews.com/marijak

The original post announcing the contest can be found here: http://www.nbabasketballonline.com/bloggers/weblog/2984.html

And if you're not already signed up with Google AdSense and making money from your blog, check out our Revenue Share FAQ page: http://www.nbabasketballonline.com/sports_content-rev_share_faq.html

Inbound link contest - Win $100! posted by Earn Money Blogging

To try and motivate our bloggers to get inbound links we're going to have a contest to see which blogger can get the most inbound links to their blog. The contest begins now and ends July 31st, 2008. To be entered in to the contest all you have to do is go out and get as many websites to link to your blog as you can and at the end of the month send us an email listing all those links. All links must be active from August 1st through August 7th when we'll be judging the entries - a winner will be announced on August 7th. All entry emails must be received by Midnight on July 31st, 2008. You can email them to sportsfan@nbabasketballonline.com

We're going to impose some restrictions on the types of links you can get so please see below for the full list of links that do NOT count.

To get started simply go to Google and find other websites and blog that are about the sports and teams that you write about. Email the website owner and ask them for a link by explaining that you think your blog would be a good resource for their readers. Or offer to write a guest post for them with your by-line and URL at the bottom of the article. Or offer to exchange links with them by writing a quick write up of their site and a reciprocal link back to them. Some webmasters will be happy to add you to their blog roll even if you don't give them a link back (which is ideal) but some may want you to link back to them - you can easily do this with a quick blog entry on your blog about their website.

To learn more about inbound links and marketing your blog in general check out this post:

Los Angeles Kings @ Columbus Blue Jackets (12/21/07) posted by Matthew R. Hastings

The Los Angeles Kings gave us hockey fans yet another lackluster performance, one almost not even worth writing about!  They faced-off with the Columbus Blue Jackets in Ohio earlier tonight.

It actually wasn't all bad at first, The Kings got on the board in the first period with a Power-play goal from Michael Cammalerri, his 15th of the season.  Assisted by two potential all stars this season in Anze Kopitar and Captain Rob Blake.  The Kings made it out of the 1st period with a 1-0 lead. 

In the second period the Kings continued to do a good job of keeping the Blue Jackets off the board and staying out of the penalty box.  Then with less than three minutes left in the 2nd period the Blue Jackets got a controversial goal to tie it 1-1.  It appeared King's goalie Jason LaBarbera had the puck covered under his pad waiting for a whistle, when Blue Jacket's forward, Novotny hit LaBarbera's pad causing the puck to slide past him into the net.  Was the ref slow on blowing his whistle?  The Kings bench sure thought so, but anyhow the 2nd period ended in a 1-1 tie. 

The Blue Jackets came out fast and put the puck on net early in the 3rd.  Nicklas Zherdev of Columbus got a bounce and just 37 seconds into the 3rd period the Blue Jackets were in the lead for the first time in the game 2-1.  In the final 19 minutes of the period the Kings managed to put 10 shots on Blue Jacket's backup goalie Fredrik Norrena.  Norrena would stay strong and hang on to get the 2 points and win for the Blue Jackets.

Blue Jackets sign Seth Jones to $32.4 million, 6-year deal (Yahoo Sports)

[read full article]

From Yahoo Sports