Columbus Blue Jackets at Ottawa Senators
Tuesday, February 13, 2024 – 7:00 PM ET
Canadian Tire Centre, Ottawa, ON
TV: Bally’s Sports Ohio – Radio: WBNS FM
Opponent’s blog: For Sens Fans
Columbus Blue Jackets, 16-25-10, 42 points, 8th Metro, 16th East
@
Ottawa Senators, 21-25-2, 44 points, 8th Atlantic, 15th East
The Columbus Blue Jackets played a decent game on Saturday as they fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning, but despite the effort, it was still the 35th overall loss for the club this season (including overtime/shootout losses). Tonight, the team heads to Canada’s capital to take on the Ottawa Senators, a disappointing club in their own right this season that has struggled to meet higher expectations this season.
Can the Blue Jackets find a way to get their first win since the All Star break tonight?
Player to Watch
Johnny Gaudreau
Hattip to DarkNStormy for pointing this out to me yesterday – in the history of the Blue Jackets franchise, the team has never had their leading scorer finish worst than 85th in the league in scoring. Gaudreau is currently 105th in the league in scoring. Additionally, the Jackets have only had two seasons where their leading scorer finished with more than a point-per-game average (Artemi Panarin did it twice). This season is a failure across many fronts, but the woeful underperformance of their top talent is notable in a historically bad way, even by the standards of the franchise.
Jackets Notes
Yegor Chinakhov did not make the trip to Ottawa after leaving Saturday’s game with an upper-body injury … Adam Boqvist played 21:42 in his first game back since being struck by an errant puck on the bench … Zach Werenski is on a 37 game goal scoring drought … Rumors are beginning to circle around the potential of a Boone Jenner trade, but according to Elliotte Friedman, that is an unlikely prospect at this time as ownership does not seem to want to see him moved
The Other Bench
Ridly Greig took a slapshot into an empty net on Saturday night to seal a Senators win over the Maple Leafs, prompting Morgan Reilly to lose his mind and cross-check Greig in the head after the play – you might have heard about it (and if you haven’t, here’s the video) … Reilly has an in-person hearing today for a potential suspension, and Greig is alright, but this discourse has taken the league by storm
Season Series
02/13/2024 CBJ @ OTT
03/14/2024 OTT @ CBJ
Stats
| Ottawa | Columbus | |
| 3.38 (10) | GPG | 2.90 (23) |
| 3.60 (30) | GAPG | 3.67 (31) |
| 15.4 (24) | PP% | 15.1 (25) |
| 74.3 (28) | PK% | 76.7 (26) |
| 50.37 (16) | 5v5 Shot Attempt % | 47.65 (24) |
| 51.26 (12) | 5v5 Unblocked Shot Attempt % | 47.98 (22) |
| 9.72 (5) | 5v5 Shooting % | 9.28 (7) |
| 89.79 (32) | 5v5 Save % | 90.78 (24) |
| Brady Tkachuk, 22 | G Leader | Kirill Marchenko and Boone Jenner, 15 |
| Tim Stutzle, 36 | A Leader | Zach Werenski, 28 |
| Tim Stutzle, 47 | P Leader | Johnny Gaudreau, 34 |
| Brady Tkachuk, 102 | PIM Leader | Erik Gudbranson, 51 |
| 14-12-2 | Home/Road | 7-11-6 |
| 6-2-2 | Last 10 | 3-6-1 |
Projected Lines
Columbus Blue Jackets
| Johnny Gaudreau | Boone Jenner | Jack Roslovic |
| Kent Johnson | Dmitri Voronkov | Kirill Marchenko |
| Alexandre Texier | Cole Sillinger | Emil Bemstrom |
| Justin Danforth | Sean Kuraly | Mathieu Olivier |
| Zach Werenski | Adam Boqvist |
| Ivan Provorov | Damon Severson |
| Jake Bean | Erik Gudbranson |
| Elvis Merzlikins |
| Daniil Tarasov |
Ottawa Senators
| Brady Tkachuk | Josh Norris | Drake Batherson |
| Mathieu Joseph | Tim Stutzle | Claude Giroux |
| Ridly Grieg | Shane Pinto | Vladimir Tarasenko |
| Dominik Kubalik | Mark Kastelic | Parker Kelly |
| Thomas Chabot | Artem Zub |
| Jakob Chychrun | Jacob Bernard-Docker |
| Erik Brannstrom | Travis Hamonic |
| Joonas Korpisalo |
| Kevin Mandolese |