Blue Jackets Warm to Task

Here’s logic, as espoused by King Coach Andy Murray before the Kings went onto the ice to play the Columbus Blue Jackets:

“To me, we’re a better team.

“We have some players who make more money than they do because they’re better players.

“So, you earn your money.”

Tuesday, payday in the NHL, Philip Anschutz deserved a rebate from his on-ice employees for 20 minutes.

Maybe longer.

First-period goals by Serge Aubin and Geoff Sanderson were supplemented by Jamie Heward’s power-play goal and Aubin’s empty-netter in the third period of the Blue Jackets’ 4-1 victory over the Kings, who launched 46 shots at Columbus goalie Ron Tugnutt to little avail.

Over the final 40 minutes, the Kings shot 33 times, turning Tugnutt into a hero for the announced crowd of 15,250.

“It was kind of funny,” Murray said. “For some reason, we didn’t have it in the first period. Then at about the 12-minute mark of the second period, it seemed like we found our legs.”

By then, Columbus owned a 2-0 lead and, in effect, the game.

That’s because of a lesson taught the Blue Jackets in a 7-1 loss to the Kings only 22 days earlier.

Make that three lessons:

* Not everybody is a scorer.

* Roles need to be accepted.

* There was payback available.

“We let them do that to us in our building,” Heward said of the embarrassment, which came in only the second game of the Blue Jackets’ existence. “Tonight, we were different. Tonight, we did the little things that you need to win.”

And got big help from Tugnutt.

“My game is offensive, and I realized tonight that once we got up a couple of goals, we didn’t need any more,” said Heward, acknowledging the goalie’s dominance.

“Well, you always need more, but you need to play defense first and guys realized that ‘If I do my job in my own end, if we get a goal it’s a bonus. But I’m not going to let them score.’ ”

Much of that duty fell to Tugnutt, who turned back Ziggy Palffy on a second-period breakaway. Tugnutt also got some help when Heward took Palffy down on another rush that began when Tugnutt failed to clear the puck.

Luc Robitaille missed two empty-net rebound efforts on a power play, and Rob Blake fired away nine times.

Tugnutt’s luck ran out with two seconds to play in the second period when Blake took a power-play pass from Palffy, steadied the puck and launched a shot from just beyond the faceoff circle to Tugnutt’s right.

The shot glanced off Stumpel, who was tangled with Heward in front of the net, and into the net to cut the advantage to 2-1.

It was the sort of scenario that can be a harbinger of things to come for an expansion team.

“It’s always in the back of your mind, ‘Are we going to go out and self-destruct?’ ” Heward said. “ ‘Are we going to go into a shell and give up a couple of goals?’ . . . We maybe had a couple of bad shifts at first [in the final period], but Ronnie made a couple of saves and we realized that there was no need to go into a defensive shell. We could go right at them.”

The Blue Jackets killed two power plays before earning one of their own in the third period when the Kings’ Jaroslav Modry was detected interfering with Tyler Wright at 12:04.

Heward’s goal came when he picked up a loose puck in the slot and slammed it past Storr at 13:16.

It was the end for the Kings, who had only two shots on goal from there.

Payback.

It was a game that had King victory written all over it before the puck was dropped. It was a game that put a coach’s goal in jeopardy.

“I knew this first part of the schedule was going to be a tough one,” Murray said. “We’ve just got to get our heads above water by the end of this road trip, so I think it’s important that I stay composed at this point.”