Game #71 Preview/Gamethread: Blue Jackets visit Sin City

Saturday, March 23, 2024 – 10:30 PM EDT
T-Mobile Arena, Paradise, Nevada
TV: Bally Sports Ohio; Radio: 97.1 FM
Opponent’s Site: Knights on Ice

Columbus Blue Jackets (23-35-12, 58 points, 8th Metro, 16th East)

at

Vegas Golden Knights (37-25-7, 81 points, 4th Pacific, 8th West)

Player to Watch

William Karlsson

Despite falling down the depth chart since the acquisition of Jack Eichel, Wild Bill has put together his best season since Vegas’s inaugural season. He scored 43 goals that year (after 18 total in his first three seasons), then 24 in his second season. After 4 seasons of less than 20 goals, he’s already at 24 this year through 57 games, and is shooting 16.4%. It will be interesting to see what happens in the playoffs, after newest Knight Tomas Hertl returns from injury. Either Karlsson or Chandler Stephenson will likely move to the wing.

Jackets Notes

David Jiricek, who traveled to Colorado as an emergency recall in case Zach Werenski was unable to play, was returned to Cleveland today. In his place is James Malatesta, who is back-up in case Alex Nylander is unable to play … Congrats to the OSU Women’s Hockey team, who won their semifinal yesterday to earn their third straight berth in the national title game. That will be tomorrow after at 4:00 against Wisconsin, who beat them for last year’s championship. Note to John Davidson and the new GM: please hire Nadine Muzerall to coach the Blue Jackets.

The Other Bench

Since the Jackets beat the Golden Knights on March 4 in Columbus, they made big moves at the trade deadline, adding Hertl as well as Anthony Mantha and Noah Hanifin. We’ll see the latter two tonight … Since the deadline, the Knights have won 4 of 6, though they’ve been unable to move out of the last wild card spot. They sit 4 points ahead of St. Louis with a game in hand, but trail Nashville by 5 points with a game in hand for the first wild card spot. They are just 2 points behind Los Angeles for third in the Pacific, but do they want to play Edmonton in the first round? Vancouver may be the better match-up.

Season Series

03/04/2024 VGK 3 @ CBJ 6
03/23/2024 CBJ @ VGK

Stats

Projected Lines

Columbus Blue Jackets

Vegas Golden Knights