Nightly Scrap: Garon earns shutout; starting role?

Columbus Blue Jackets backup Mathieu Garon won his third game of the season with a 3-0 shutout against his former team, the Montreal Canadiens.  Although he has played five less games than starting goalie Steve Mason, he only has one less win than the former Calder Trophy winner.

In addition to receiving good goaltending, the team also got production from their top line of Derrick Brassard, Rick Nash and Jakub Voracek.  The trio put the game away with two goals and rookie Kyle Wilson scored his third goal of the season to cap the scoring.

Truly a win the Blue Jackets needed to help their confidence.

Meanwhile in Toronto, the Ottawa Senators took the game from the Maple Leafs thanks to the powerplay chemistry of Erik Karlsson and Sergei Gonchar.  Known to be somewhat of a mentor with the man advantage, Gonchar is showing why the Sens spent all that money in him, putting up a goal and an assist.  Mike Fisher also scored with a first period penalty shot for his third of the year as the Sens won 3-2.

For the Leafs, Clarke MacArthur scored his seventh goal of the year and Nikolai Kulemin scored his second of the year.  JS Giguere took the loss, saving only 21 of 24 shots, but not before the team lost captain Dion Phaneuf to a lower body injury.

Moving on to Minnesota, the Wild found a way to beat another good team as they defeated the San Jose Sharks 1-0.  Despite only firing 15 shots at starting goalie Antero Niittymaki, the lone goal by Andrew Brunette made a difference.  It probably had something to do with Niklas Backstrom- click here to vote for him.  Martin Havlat, who had a dispute with his team only a week ago, played on the top powerplay unit and connected with Mikko Koivu and Brunette for the marker.

With injuries to Antti Miettinen and Guillaume Latendresse the team had no other choice but to play Havlat in a bigger role.

In our last game of the  evening the Vancouver Canucks defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 thanks to an unexpected Raffi Torres hat trick.  The Canucks actually led the game 3-0 in the first period before blowing the lead altogether thanks to three goals by the Oilers’ third and fourth line. Andrew Cogliano and Ladislav Smid led the team with two assists a piece.

When all was said and done Roberto Luongo earned his second win in as many nights.