With time winding down at the Staples Center in a game between Columbus and the Los Angeles Kings and with the Kings on the power play, the clock appeared to have frozen at 1.8 seconds remaining for more than a full second.

The extra ticks allowed the scrambling Kings to score the game-winning goal with less than a second left — winning 3-2.

The NHL said it will look into the issue, though league executive Colin Campbell told TSN Thursday that the game won’t be replayed.

“We’re not questioning (the clock operator’s) integrity,” Campbell told the Columbus Dispatch. “But we’re going to open all doors and examine everything, to see what happened and how we can keep it from happening again.”

Jackets GM Scott Howson addressed the issue on his blog Thursday.

“It is an amazing coincidence that with the Kings on a power play at Staples Center and with a mad scramble around our net in the dying seconds of the third period of a 2-2 hockey game that the clock stopped for at least one full second. I can only think of two ways in which this would have happened. Either there was a deliberate stopping of the clock or the clock malfunctioned.”

However the Kings have offered another explanation. Los Angeles general manger Dean Lombardi said there was no extra time added to the game and the delay was just the display syncing up with the internal clock.

“Those clocks are sophisticated instruments that calculate time by measuring electrical charges called coulombs — given the rapidity and volume of electrons that move through the measuring device the calibrator must adjust at certain points which was the delay you see,” he said in a email to numerous media outlets. “The delay is just recalibrating for the clock moving too quickly during the 10–10ths of a second before the delay. This insures that the actual playing time during a period is exactly 20 minutes.

The system features state-of-the-art hardware and controls technology, safeguards including secondary containment and an air scrubbing system, and a complex sequence for leak detection, alarm and notification. To further ensure control of the ammonia gases, the refrigeration system and ammonia charge will be fully contained in an enclosed building.

“For more than 90 years, we’ve been committed to our employees’ safety and invested in improving the conditions they work in,” CEO Tim Fallon said. “The new ammonia refrigeration system puts Columbus at the forefront of innovative manufacturing safety technologies.”

The Forbes facility, which has been operational since 1967, acts as Columbus’ primary manufacturing plant where it handcrafts its full collection of traditional and artisan salumi and suite of premium deli meats. In 2012, it’s expected to produce approximately 22 million pounds of specialty meats. The facility operates five to seven days a week based on demand, and employs up to 150 people.

Two incidents at the facility in 2009 prompted an EPA investigation which found the plant to be in violation of regulatory requirements for process safety management under Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act. Columbus fully cooperated with the investigators and has made system improvements surpassing the EPA’s recommended standards. The company will also pay a $685,446 penalty as detailed in the consent decree made public today.

Job seekers who smoke, chew tobacco or even use nicotine patches won’t be considered for the 3,200 casino jobs in Toledo and Columbus when developer Penn National Gaming Inc. starts filling positions later this year, The Dayton Daily News reported (http://bit.ly/xNYotF ) Thursday.

About 6.38 million passengers traveled through the airport last year, according to the Columbus Regional Airport Authority . That was about 0.2 percent more passengers than the 6.37 million the airport saw in 2010, the newspaper reports.

Instead, Hall, who was injured in the pre-game warm-up and required treatment from the on-site plastic surgeon, was held out of Tuesday’s game while the undermanned Oilers jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Nationwide Arena.

The 30th place Blue Jackets charged back and scored a 4-2 win at Nationwide Arena, leaving the Oilers with a record of 17-24-4 and one more player in the medical room.

“I was talking to him while the doctors were with him and, typical Taylor, he said, ‘I’ll be playing tonight,’ ”

said general manager Steve Tambellini, who was going to push his players to wear helmets and visors during the warm-ups.

Hall was not available after the game, but he did get on the stationary bike after he had been stitched up. Because he isn’t expected to have any complications from the freak three player pile-up, he hasn’t yet been ruled out for Thursday’s game against the St. Louis Blues.

Tambellini did not call up a forward from the Oklahoma City Barons.

“It was really scary. I saw it ­happen,” said captain Shawn Horcoff.

“I saw him go down then I saw (defenceman Corey Potter) jump. He actually kicked him on the way down.

“It didn’t look good.”

Hall, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, stepped on a puck in the warm-up and as he was falling to the ice, he slid into teammate Ladislav Smid and both skidded into the side boards. While they were still down on the ice, Potter, attempting to avoid the pile-up, tried to hop over Hall and instead clipped him in the head.

Potter, coincidentally, got tangled up with fellow blue-liner Ryan Whitney back in a November game against the Vancouver Canucks. Whitney missed 13 games with a sprained knee. It was also the second time this season that the Oilers lost a player in a pre-game warm-up.

On Nov. 17, defenceman Andy Sutton aggravated a groin injury before the opening faceoff and missed the next six games.

“I just turned the corner and I had two guys sliding at me. I just tried to get of the way but unfortunately, I came in contact with Hallsy’s head,” said Potter. “I didn’t really step on him. I tried to jump over him and kicked him.

“It’s a good thing he’s okay. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cut that bad that close before.

“It was pretty gross. I was pretty freaked out in the warm-up because I was worried.”

Potter saw that Hall was getting treatment in the rink, not at the hospital, easing his guilt before the game got underway.

“I hate to see something like that. I was pretty disgusting,” said Smid. “But it just sucks to lose the way we did. We should be beating teams like that.”

Seven minutes after the puck dropped, Anton Lander skated around Derick Brassard, zipped across the Blue Jackets crease, then tapped his second goal of the season past goaltender Curtis Sanford.

Less than two minutes later, Ben Eager put Edmonton up by a pair, but the Jackets started to chip away at the lead in the second.

Rookie Ryan Johansen slipped his eighth goal under Devan Dubnyk’s left pad to start the period then with just eight-tenths of a second left on the clock, Brassard banged his own rebound off Oilers defenceman Jeff Petry. The puck rolled up and over Dubnyk’s right glove.

Thirty-two seconds into the third, newcomer Colton Gillies, acquired off the waiver wire, stole the puck in the Oilers end and slid it over to Derek MacKenzie, who put the Jackets up 3-2. Derek Dorsett scored an empty-net power-play goal to close out the game.

Edmonton (17-24-4) plays the Blues in St. Louis on Thursday. The Jackets (13-27-5) are now 2-2 under interim head coach Todd Richards.

“A little bit of a man-power problem for starters,” said head coach Tom Renney, “and we came a little unglued in the second period and gave them a chance to feel a little better about their game. We tried to push through in the third, but tough start with the go-ahead goal. We just couldn’t muster enough to push through and get the offence we needed.”

Hall was the lone member left from the Oilers top line as both Jordan Eberle (knee) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (ankle) left the lineup this month. They followed defencemen Ryan Whitney (foot), Cam Barker (ankle) and Tom Gilbert (ankle).

“These are the cards we’ve been dealt,” said Renney. “We have to sit at the table and play.”

The fake bills are “very high quality” and have been called by one bank the most deceptive $100 bills that have come through the area, said Lt. Matt Myers of Columbus Police Department.

Some key identifying marks that usually would separate counterfeit bills from genuine currency have been mimicked perfectly, including the security strip inside the bills, Myers said.

Mirosevic, 31, has played 25 matches for Chile, most recently appearing in a pair of 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Paraguay.

He joins Columbus from Chilean first division side Universidad Catolica, where he served as captain and had 46 goals in 108 games over the last three years, which was his second stint with the storied club.

“The leadership locally in raising this issue and beginning to do the right things, exploring all the options, making sure that we are not left out of this is absolutely the right thing to do,” Gordon Kenna, CEO of Georgians for Passenger Rail, says.

The rail system will cost just under $450 million to set up and $2.3 million annually to operate.

But officials say it’s a great investment. They say they predict more than six million rail trips between Atlanta and Columbus a year.

“These are tax dollars you’ve already paid, do we want to add lanes, turn lanes and concrete medians, or do we want to invest over many years time in passenger rail,” Mayor Teresa Tomlinson asks.

The first step is to conduct a feasibility study to look at costs, where to put the rail and how many people would ride it.

A feasibility study costs roughly $350,000. But Columbus received some good news: the Georgia Department of Transportation is including Columbus in its feasibility study which will reduce the price tag for Columbus.

“There will probably be a need to match that money locally, but there seems to be a big interest in doing so but that’s a great great first step,” Gordon says.

Columbus is getting a little help from other parts of the region. The former mayor of North Carolina joined today’s meeting via Skype to share his experiences setting up passenger rail in his state.

And leaders across the South and Northeast all agree, passenger rails boost economy.

“When you have major cities like Atlanta, Columbus, Augusta, Macon, we all have our economic development hubs, our resources. If we can connect those resources we put Georgia on a whole new plain for economic competitiveness and development in the nation,” Tomlinson says.

And not to mention it’s impact on the environment.

“Not only do we reduce emissions but we really make much more efficient use of land because rail transportation supports much more compact development and more walkable urban development,” Kenna says.

Mayor Tomlinson says a feasibility study takes a little less than a year to complete.

The disease was not spread through sexual contact at the time, but adapted to survive once it got to Europe, Emory University researchers say.

The struggling parent company of Sears and Kmart, saying it can no longer afford to keep underperforming stores open, disclosed plans Tuesday to shutter 100 to 120 outlets nationwide.

Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., did not release a list of targeted stores, nor did it give a timeline on when they would be closed or liquidated. The retailer, which releases its full-year 2011 earnings report on Feb. 12, said declining electronics and apparel sales at its Kmart chain and lower home appliance and electronics sales at Sears prompted the move.

“While our past practice has been to keep marginally performing stores open while we worked to improve their performance, we no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment,” the company said in a statement.