Wednesday, December 27, 2023 – 7:00 PM ET
Prudential Center, Newark, NJ
TV: Bally Sports Ohio; Radio: 97.1 FM
Columbus Blue Jackets (11-18-6, 28 points, 8th Metro, 15th East)
at
New Jersey Devils (17-13-2, 36 points, 6th Metro, 10th East)
Immediately after Thanksgiving, the Blue Jackets played in New Jersey. Immediately after the Christmas break…they’re playing in New Jersey.
Player to Watch
Jack Hughes
This section is “player to watch” but someone this good is hard to miss. In these teams’ last meeting 11 days ago, Hughes scored a hat trick in a 6-0 Devils win in Columbus. He has 39 points (14/25) in 27 games so far, so he’s playing ahead of the 99 point pace he had last season.
Jackets Notes
Sean Kuraly left Saturday’s game with an abdominal injury and was taken to the hospital for testing. He was discharged that night after the tests were negative. It’s a relief that he avoided serious injury, but we won’t know his status for sure until practice this morning … The other big lineup question I have is in goal. Daniil Tarasov has started 3 of 4 games since returning to the roster, but hasn’t been very good (1-2-0 record, .852 SV%, 4.39 GAA) … The World Junior Championships began yesterday. Denton Mateychuk had an assist for Canada while Gavin Brindley scored twice for Team USA:
The Other Bench
The Devils have not done well since last playing Columbus: they lost three straight at home to Anaheim (1-5), Philadelphia (2-3 in OT), and Edmonton (3-6). They beat Detroit 3-2 in the last game before the break … The Devils are 10-5-0 on the road but just below .500 at home. Weird.
Season Series
11/24/2023 CBJ 2 @ NJD 1
12/16/2023 NJD 6 @ CBJ 3
12/27/2023 CBJ @ NJD
01/19/2024 NJD @ CBJ
Stats
| New Jersey | Columbus | |
| 3.41 (10) | GPG | 3.09 (17) |
| 3.56 (29) | GAPG | 3.63 (30) |
| 30.0 (3) | PP% | 15.3 (25) |
| 77.7 (24) | PK% | 81.4 (12) |
| 54.9 (4) | 5v5 Shot Attempt % | 47.1 (26) |
| 53.4 (5) | 5v5 Unblocked Shot Attempt % | 47.5 (24) |
| 8.5 (15) | 5v5 Shooting % | 9.8 (6) |
| 89.6 (30) | 5v5 Save % | 90.6 (21) |
| Jack Hughes, Tyler Toffoli, 14 | G Leader | Kirill Marchenko, Boone Jenner, 13 |
| Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, 25 | A Leader | Zach Werenski, 24 |
| Jack Hughes, 39 | P Leader | Zach Werenski, 25 |
| Brendan Smith, 34 | PIM Leader | Erik Gudbranson, 44 |
| 7-8-2 | Home/Road | 4-8-3 |
| 6-3-1 | Last 10 | 3-5-2 |
Projected Lines
Columbus Blue Jackets
| Johnny Gaudreau | Adam Fantilli | Justin Danforth |
| Yegor Chinakhov | Dmitri Voronkov | Kirill Marchenko |
| Emil Bemstrom | Cole Sillinger | Kent Johnson |
| Alexandre Texier | Sean Kuraly | Brendan Gaunce |
| Zach Werenski | Erik Gudbranson |
| Ivan Provorov | Damon Severson |
| Andrew Peeke | David Jiricek |
| Elvis Merzlikins |
| Daniil Tarasov |
New Jersey Devils
| Tyler Toffoli | Jack Hughes | Jesper Bratt |
| Ondrej Palat | Nico Hischier | Curtis Lazar |
| Timo Meier | Michael McLeod | Dawson Mercer |
| Alexander Holtz | Erik Haula | Nathan Bastian |
| Jonas Siegenthaler | Simon Nemec |
| Luke Hughes | John Marino |
| Brendan Smith | Kevin Bahl |
| Vitek Vanecek |
| Akira Schmid |