Preview: Don’t Play Down
Columbus starts a 7 game homestand
As the stats preview showed, once again the Blue Jackets are facing a team that is no match on paper. And yet...
Since a hard fought OT game against Pittsburgh, Columbus laid an egg at home against New Jersey then needed OT to beat a mediocre Detroit team. This same Vancouver team scored 3 goals in the third period against the Jackets back in December, and again it took OT for the Jackets to prevail.
This has been a common pattern over the last month: Columbus gets up for big games but aren’t able to sustain that same energy against others. Coach Tortorella has made mention of it, that the players may overlook certain opponents. Let’s hope that stops tonight.
The good news is that the Dubinsky line has been red hot, even as the other lines have gone cold.
Lineup news: David Savard is still out, but he did practice with the team this morning. Josh Anderson was questionable after that [“TOTALLY FINE AND LEGAL AND NOTHING TO SEE HERE” - NHL] hit on Tuesday. Oliver BJORKSTRAND was recalled on an emergency basis, but according to Torts, Anderson should play tonight.
While Columbus is starting a 7 game homestand, Vancouver is playing their second of 6 straight road games. They lost 2-4 on Tuesday in Nashville. That was their fourth straight loss. They are 3-6-3 since a 6 game win streak in late December/early January.
Vancouver forward Sven Baertschi suffered a concussion against Nashville and, like us, many in Vancouver are upset about the lack of punishment for it.
Projected Lineups
| Brandon Saad | Alexander Wennberg | Nick Foligno |
| Boone Jenner | Brandon Dubinsky | Cam Atkinson |
| Matt Calvert | William Karlsson | Josh Anderson |
| Scott Hartnell | Lukas Sedlak | Sam Gagner |
| Zach Werenski | Seth Jones |
| Jack Johnson | Ryan Murray |
| Scott Harrington | Markus Nutivaara |
| Sergei Bobrovsky |
| Joonas Korpisalo |
| Daniel Sedin | Henrik Sedin | Loui Eriksson |
| Jannik Hansen | Brandon Sutter | Markus Granlund |
| Reid Boucher | Bo Horvat | Alexandre Burrows |
| Jack Skille | Michael Chaput | Jayson Megna |
| Alexander Edler | Troy Stecher |
| Ben Hutton | Nikita Tryamkin |
| Luca Sbisa | Chris Tanev |
| Ryan Miller |
| Jacob Markstrom |