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Game Preview #6 – At A Loss For Words

It was the ultimate Freudian slip from Blue Jackets color man Jody Shelley last night:

Lupol’s lookin’ at the fuck, I mean the puck, excuse me…

With all apologies since we usually pull back on the F word here, I think it’s fair and safe to say that we’ve ALL been lookin’ at the fuck for a week now, and we’re all pretty tired of it.

At this point, I’m out of ways to even set these games up anymore. Six games in and my well of prose has gone dry. I hate this over-used hipster phrase (because I’m a curmudgeon, apparently), but I literally can’t even.

What’s it going to take for the collective roster to summon up the will to play 60 minutes (hell, even 40 minutes at this point) of NHL-caliber hockey? Is it going to take their coach getting fired? We’re probably 60 minutes away from that if they don’t win tonight. Will it take a backup goalie? Will it take the guy who’s been here the least amount of time–Brandon Saad–putting some kind of money on the board to show his old team that he didn’t get sent to hockey hell, as we all tried to promise this summer?

I don’t know. I’ve got nothing, folks. Six games in, and I feel like I’m writing out the string.

I’ve only made one change, swapping the goaltenders. The CBJ didn’t skate this morning, and so no full lineup has been announced as of the time of this writing. Kerby Rychel did again get recalled from Lake Erie after having a Monster game (what I did there… do you see it?) last night in the LEMs’ home opener. A dose of pure give-a-shit in the lineup would be good, I think. Even if it’s a small one.

Projected Lineups

Columbus Blue Jackets
(0-5-0, 0 Points; 8th division, 16th conference)

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

Jack Johnson David Savard
Ryan Murray Cody Goloubef
Fedor Tyutin Dalton Prout

Curtis McElhinney
Sergei Bobrovsky

Chicago Blackhawks
(2-3-0, 4 Points; 7th Division, 10th Conference)

Bryan Bickell Jonathan Toews Marian Hossa
Artemi Panarin Artem Anisimov Patrick Kane
Teuvo Teravainen Vince Hinostroza Ryan Garbutt
Andrew Desjardins Marcus Kruger Andrew Shaw

Duncan Keith Niklas Hjalmarsson
Viktor Svedberg Brent Seabrook
Trevor Daley Trevor van Riemsdyk

Corey Crawford
Scott Darling