To a man on Thursday, the Blue Jackets were ready to get on the ice, get going, and start working. They get their wish; just three days later, two games (split squad) kick off the exhibition schedule today:
Blue Jackets at Hurricanes
PNC Arena – Raleigh, NC
1:30 PM
Blues at Blue Jackets
Nationwide Arena – Columbus, OH
6:30 PM
Roster in Carolina
Forwards
Cam Atkinson
Oliver Bjorkstrand
Michael Chaput
Ryan Craig
Nick Foligno
Brian Gibbons
Mike Hoeffel
Mark Letestu
Corey Tropp
T.J. Tynan
Dana Tyrell
Trent Vogelhuber
Defensemen
Tim Erixon
Cody Goloubef
Thomas Larkin
Frederic St. Denis
Will Weber
James Wisniewski
Goaltenders
Anton Forsberg
Scott Munroe
Roster vs. St. Louis
Forwards
Josh Anderson
Artem Anisimov
Jared Boll
Matt Calvert
Jerry D’Amigo
Marko Dano
Simon Hjalmarsson
Boone Jenner
Nick Moutrey
Kerby Rychel
Markus Soberg
Alexander Wennberg
Defensemen
Dillon Heatherington
Jack Johnson
Brett Ponich
Dalton Prout
David Savard
Jaime Sifers
Goaltenders
Oscar Dansk
Curtis McElhinney
Obviously, the Jackets look to be stronger at home in this setup. Two notable absences, of course, would be Ryan Johansen and Sergei Bobrovsky. We can at least expect to see the latter in an exhibition game sometime soon.
Per The Dispatch, Anton Forsberg will play the entire game in Raleigh, and Curtis McElhinney and Oscar Dansk will split time in the game in Columbus.
Having had just two practices, combined with some unfamiliarity as young guys and camp invites work their way in with veterans, one can expect some degree of sloppiness along the way. In addition, some tweaks to the Jackets’ system–including asking the forwards to come back and play a little deeper in the defensive zone–will no doubt cause some issues during these games.
Even still, it’s just nice to have hockey back.