Game Preview #18 - Bounce Back In Beantown?
After a stomach-punching OT loss on Tuesday in Washington, do the Jackets have anything left for the reigning Eastern Conference Champs?
Columbus Blue Jackets at Boston Bruins
November 14, 2013 - 7:00pm EST
TD Garden - Boston, Massachusetts
Radio - WBNS 97.1 - TV - Fox Sports Ohio
Opponents Blog: Stanley Cup of Chowder
SBN's Bruins vs Blue Jackets Coverage
Well, it doesn't get any easier for a Jackets team in a free-fall (1-5-1 in their last seven) who now find themselves at the bottom of their division, and but for Florida and Buffalo...
They head into Boston to take on a Bruins team that has things clicking again. And, the Jackets have again reached that "let's start our backup!" territory, as the Bruins will go with Chad Johnson tonight instead of Tuukka Rask (though, to be fair, it's the first night of a back-to-back for them, too).
The Jackets have started to put the puck in the net a bit better over the past two games, scoring seven non-empty-net goals against the Isles and the Caps. They'd better hope to have that scoring touch, as the Bruins are currently leading the league in defense. And, as we saw last month, they certainly don't like to give up good scoring chances in front of their net.
Likewise, they make teams pay for their mistakes, as we also saw back in October in Nationwide.
Some good news for Columbus: Nick Foligno should be back in the lineup tonight. Not surprisingly, he'll draw in on the fourth line. It also appears that Derek MacKenzie is healthy enough to go tonight in his normal (of late, anyway) third line spot. On D, nothing official at this point in time (~1:00), but my guess is that David Savard gets his chance to draw back in.
One other bit of good news, if you will: the Jackets have killed off 13 of their last 14 PKs, which has brought their season number back to 80%. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, as the team definitely hung its hat on its PK for much of last season.
Also, don't forget: tonight's #CBJBWW watching party is at the Graceland BWWs (off of High Street north of Clintonville).
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets
(6-10-1, 13 Points; 8th division, 14th conference)
| Brandon Dubinsky | Ryan Johansen | Cam Atkinson |
| R.J. Umberger | Artem Anisimov | Marian Gaborik |
| Derek MacKenzie | Mark Letestu | Blake Comeau |
| Nick Foligno | Michael Chaput | Jared Boll |
| Fedor Tyutin | Jack Johnson |
| Ryan Murray | James Wisniewski |
| Nikita Nikitin | David Savard |
| Sergei Bobrovsky |
| Curtis McElhinney |
Boston Bruins
(11-5-1, 23 Points; 2nd Division, 2nd Conference)
| Milan Lucic | David Krejci | Jarome Iginla |
| Brad Marchand | Patrice Bergeron | Loui Eriksson |
| Carl Soderberg | Chris Kelly | Reilly Smith |
| Daniel Paille | Gregory Campbell | Shawn Thornton |
| Zdeno Chara | Dougie Hamilton |
| Dennis Seidenberg | Torey Krug |
| Matt Bartkowski | Johnny Boychuk |
| Chad Johnson |
| Tuukka Rask |
Season Series
10/12/13 - Boston 3 at Columbus 1
11/14/13 - Columbus at Boston
11/30/13 - Columbus at Boston
Head to Head Stats
Bruins Columbus 2.76 (12) GPG 2.53 (19) 1.71 (1) GAPG 2.94 (22) 18.8% (14) PP% 18.6% (16) 85.2% (9) PK% 80.0% (23) Milan Lucic, 7 G leader four tied, 5 David Krejci, 13 A leader James Wisniewski, 12 David Krejci, 16 Pts leader Brandon Dubinsky, 15 Adam McQuaid, 33 PIM leader Brandon Dubinsky, 34 7-3-1 Home/Road 2-4-1 11/11 vs Tampa Bay, W 3-0 Last Game 11/12 @ Washington, L 4-3 (OT) 6-3-1 Last 10 4-5-1