The Blue Jackets travel to Boston tonight to face their Opening Night foes, the Boston Bruins. However, don’t count on this one as a scouting exercise for the opener, as injuries, the World Cup and the need to make a lot of personnel decisions very quickly.
Boston’s announced line-up for this evening is as follows:
Forwards: Colby Cave, Peter Cehlarik, Austin Czarnik, Jake DeBrusk, Seth Griffith, Colton Hargrove, Jimmy Hayes, Danton Heinen, Sean Kuraly, Peter Mueller, Riley Nash and Tyler Randell
Defense: Brandon Carlo, John-Michael Liles, Joe Morrow, Kevin Miller, Jakub Zboril (6th D undetermined at press time)
Goalies: Anton Khudobin, Zane McIntyre
The Blue Jackets will counter with:
Forwards: Alexander Wennberg, Mike Brown, Brandon Saad, Sonny Milano, William Karlsson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Markus Hannikainen, Josh Anderson, Lukas Sedlak, Daniel Zaar, Vitaly Abramov and Sam Gagner
Defense: Seth Jones, Cody Goloubef, Dalton Prout, Scott Harrington, Markus Nutivaara, Oleg Yevenko
Goalies: Curtis McElhinney, Michael Houser
This should be an entertaining affair, with promotion candidates Bjorkstrand, Anderson, Milano, Zaar and Sedlak all in the lineup. Those players will also likely be used as a measuring stick for the talented Vitaly Abramov.
John Tortorella correctly dismissed the split squad sweep by St. Louis yesterday, but might be a bit more critical this evening. NHL Network is carrying the game, with face-off at 7:00 PM. You can listen on the CBJ app, at Bluejackets.com or on AM 1460.