CBJ 3 – CGY 2
Another big night for the Blue Jackets as they found a way to put together their first winning streak of 2010. Besides the Jackets victory, Goaltender Mathieu Garon, Forward Antoine Vermette, and Forward Raffi Torres all reached important career milestones.
Garon was big when needed last night in solidifying his 100th career victory. Not only was he able to reach the 100 win plateau but he did so in his 224th NHL game. An interesting note is that last night was Garon’s 20th start of the year, prior to the season many prognosticators, myself included, laughed when the coaching and management said Mathieu would get around twenty starts this season…. my how times have changed.
Antoine Vermette without a doubt had an outstanding game, contributing on all three Blue Jackets goals last night and finishing the night on an exclamation point scoring his 100th career goal. In 422 career games with the Senators and Blue Jackets, Vermette has now reached 100-115-215. In my humble opinion, for a player with his level of skill and speed, Vermie isn’t scoring as much as he should and to me has been a bit of a disappointment so far this year. In his defense though, there have been many disappointments this season.
Finally Raffi Torres was able to reach the 40oth game mark in his career. Why is this important? Well players reaching 400 games can receive pension after their careers in hockey have ended.
With these milestones being reached by multiple players it prompted me to take a look at what other marks are near being reached by Blue Jackets players:
Kristian Huselius sits at 167-230-397 nearing 400 career points
Rick Nash is nearing the same plateau with 213-183-396
RJ Umberger is nearing 100 goals and 200 career points 90-102-192
Raffi Torres is close to 100 goals and sits at 91 goals
Chris Clark is very close to multiple landmarks with 95-99-194
Those are just a few upcoming things to keep an eye out for. It sure does feel good to win a few games and the Jackets have without a doubt saved Ken Hitchcock’s job for the time being (more on that later). I leave you with this little gem from last night (high quality video coming Sunday or Monday).
