Blue Jackets vs. Red Wings
7:00 PM – Game Faceoff
It’s March 8th. It’s 70 degrees out. The Jackets are coming off an absolute shellacking in Philly over the weekend. “Playing out the string” is officially where we are now firmly entrenched. (We were always there, but now as we get down well under 20 games to go, it really sets in.)
You’ll forgive me if I can’t really offer up much in the way of commentary, other than to note that the Jackets are officially three points away from tying the ’11-’12 Jackets’ final point total and escaping that ignominy. So there’s that.
I hope the Jackets skate tonight
I hope they managed to score an actual goal.
I hope their goalie can stop a shot from the neutral zone.
I hope enough Jackets fans show up to make it sound almost like a home game.
I hope the Jackets do enough things to give those fans reasons to make it sound like a home game.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.
I hope.
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets
(27-31-8, 62 Points; 8th division, 15th conference)
| Boone Jenner | Brandon Dubinsky | Cam Atkinson |
| Scott Hartnell | Alexander Wennberg | Nick Foligno |
| Matt Calvert | William Karlsson | David Clarkson |
| Rene Bourque | Gregory Campbell | Jared Boll |
| Ryan Murray | Seth Jones |
| Cody Goloubef | David Savard |
| Fedor Tyutin | Dalton Prout |
| Joonas Korpisalo |
| Curtis McElhinney |
Detroit Red Wings
(32-22-11, 75 Points; 4th Division, 8th Conference)
| Henrik Zetterberg | Pavel Datsyuk | Justin Abdelkader |
| Gustav Nyquist | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
| Dylan Larkin | Andreas Athanasiou | Brad Richards |
| Darren Helm | Luke Glendening | Tomas Jurco |
| Kyle Quincey | Mike Green |
| Danny DeKeyser | Alexey Marchenko |
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Jimmy Howard |
| Petr Mrazek |