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Game Preview #3 – “Discover” The Win Column on Columbus Day

Is Game #3 too early to use the term “must win”?

Confidence is a funny thing in sports. Teams playing with confidence can over-perform their talent expectations. Likewise, teams playing with no confidence can go the other way. There are a couple ways to look at today’s game:

1) Friday and Saturday, the Jackets played against a very, very good team. They more than held their own on Friday outside of a couple of costly turnovers, which are fixable. The next three games are against beatable opponents. 80 games to go, plenty of time, and two or three wins in the next three games makes everything look a lot better.

2) We spent a summer trying to convince ourselves that the defense would be fine. It’s not. We spent the first month of the 2011-2012 season saying that they just needed to figure things out, get some confidence, and right the ship. They didn’t. There’s an old adage in sports about “it gets late early” if you’re not careful. The Jackets are certainly not at technical “must win” time yet with just two games down and 80 to go, but man, if this one doesn’t feel like it a bit to me.

Buffalo was the worst team in the league last year. This is certainly not the same team we saw last season, with the additions of Ryan O’Reilly, a now-healthy Evander Kane, Cody Franson, and #2 overall pick wunderkind Jack Eichel–not to mention hiring Dan Bylsma as head coach. That said, it’s a team that lost its goalie Robin Lehner in the first game, and even before he was hurt still had a huge question mark in net. They’ve scored just twice in two games while giving up seven goals. They’ve scored just twice in those two games.

In short, even improved, this team is NOT the Rangers.

But, Columbus is also NOT the Jackets we saw in the pre-season that was smothering good teams and pouring in goals seemingly at will. Granted, they won’t be seeing Henrik Lundqvist today, but they can’t allow themselves to be contained, either.

If the Jackets defense continues to struggle in its own end, the offense is going to have to carry the mail to keep this team afloat until any/all defensive solutions can be unearthed. Today should be a day where they can do that.

Injury Notes

As noted, Robin Lehner is out for the Sabres, which really hurts their defensive effort for an already-weak blue line core. Chad Johnson should start. So far this season he has allowed five goals on 50 shots (.875 SV%), which certainly isn’t great. This is a golden opportunity for Columbus to get right offensively. Zach Bogosian is also out for the Sabres.

For the Jackets, it looks like Alexander Wennberg is still a no-go with a concussion from Friday night. William Karlsson should again draw in.

Projected Lineups

Columbus Blue Jackets
(0-2-0, 0 Points; 8th division, 15th conference)

Brandon Saad Ryan Johansen Nick Foligno
Boone Jenner Brandon Dubinsky Rene Bourque
Scott Hartnell William Karlsson Cam Atkinson
Matt Calvert Gregory Campbell Jared Boll

Ryan Murray David Savard
Fedor Tyutin Jack Johnson
Kevin Connauton Dalton Prout

Sergei Bobrovsky
Curtis McElhinney

Buffalo Sabres
(0-2-0, 0 Points; 7th Division, 14th Conference)

Ryan O’Reilly Zemgus Girgensons Tyler Ennis
Evander Kane Jack Eichel Brian Gionta
Matt Moulson Johan Larsson Marcus Foligno
Nicolas Deslauriers David Legwand Jamie McGinn

Mike Weber Cody Franson
Josh Gorges Rasmus Ristolainen
Carlo Colaiacovo Mark Pysyk

Chad Johnson
Nathan Lieuwen