Norrena, Blue Jackets blank Sharks

Hockey Betting Lines

02/17/2007 - Columbus, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rookie Fredrik Norrena blocked all 29 shots faced for his third shutout, as the Columbus Blue Jackets blanked the San Jose Sharks, 3-0, at Nationwide Arena.

Fredrik Modin, Gilbert Brule and Sergei Fedorov each had a goal and an assist for the Blue Jackets, who improved to 2-3-0 on their current six-game homestand, their longest in franchise history. It ends Sunday night versus Montreal.

Nikolai Zherdev and David Vyborny both notched an assist.

Evgeni Nabokov stopped 16 shots for San Jose, which has been blanked in its last two contests. The Sharks won the first two games of a season-long eight- game road trip -- including a big victory in Anaheim on February 7 -- but was also blanked by Nashville, 5-0, on Wednesday.

"We've taken a lot of steps, but the biggest step is the one we haven't taken yet and that is the step of consistency," Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock said. "It comes from inside the locker room, individually and then collectively is greater than anything."

San Jose, which is 18-10-0 on the road this year, will continue its swing on Sunday with a divisional clash in Dallas and will also visit Washington, Chicago and Calgary.

"We tried," San Jose coach Ron Wilson said. "We had opportunities. Their goalie, he made saves."

After a scoreless first period, Columbus drew first blood with 15:04 left in the second.

Modin took a feed from Brule in the right circle and skated around the goal. He backhanded a shot from just in front of the left post that deflected off Nabokov's arm, and tipped in the rebound over the netminder's right shoulder.

The Blue Jackets padded their lead when, on a 2-on-1 break, Fedorov dropped a pass to Brule, who fired a snap shot top shelf 6:02 into the third.

Columbus then blew the game open on its third unanswered goal, as Fedorov bounced the puck off the netminder's pads and then wristed it home on the second effort 12:05 into the third.

Columbus finished 1-for-4 on the power play, while San Jose was 0-for-4 on the man-advantage.

Game Notes

The Sharks posted victories in the two previous meetings this season between the clubs, and outscored Columbus 8-2 in those two games...Despite this loss, San Jose has won six of the last nine overall in the series and has split the last six in Columbus.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.