Mathieu Garon stopped 21 shots for his 100th NHL win, Antoine Vermette set up
The Jackets ended their road losing streak at 13 games with a 4-2 win at
But Hitchcock said the team he saw in the two wins looked like the one that made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history last spring.
"We're starting to look like last year's team," he said. "We're playing the same way we did most of last year."
The Jackets are still 14th in the West, 10 points out of eighth, but Hitchcock feels his team is more than capable of cracking the top eight.
"You never know, other teams have come from far back," Hitchcock said. "If we can keep playing well and get this thing to .500 then we have the big home schedule in February, March, and April, we can still do some damage."
Vermette feels the Jackets have to look at the little picture for now -- rather than worrying about how far out they are, they need to focus on winning individual games.
Garon, who got the win against the Oilers, faced only 22 shots -- just five in the final period.
Vermette gave the Jackets a 3-1 lead at 5:22 of the third period when he dunked Raffi Torres' perfect pass behind Curtis McElhinney for his 13th goal of the season. That proved to be the winner when Bourque scored his 15th of the season with 8:01 remaining.
Torres gave
Jan Hejda put the Jackets ahead to stay when he scored his third goal of the season and second in two nights, taking a feed from Vermette and beating McElhinney with a slapper from the high slot at 11:03 of the second period.
Flames coach Brent Sutter was frustrated with the mistakes his veteran team continues to make.
"You look at the third goal, it's a 3-on-2 in the third period of a 2-1 hockey game. That should never happen, never. It should never god damn well happen," Sutter said. "A 1-1 hockey game and we don't get pucks out of our zone because we play soft. It's a recurring thing here and it really bothers me."
