Time: 7:00 PM EST
Place: Nationwide Arena, Columbus, OH
TV: BSD, BSO
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Jackets’ SB Nation Site: The Cannon
The Wings finish out their first Western road trip of the season by heading slightly East of home and visiting the Columbus Blue Jackets before earning some time off to skate back on their home ice.
The Wings will be looking to earn at least half the possible points they had available during this four-game stint and to do so they’d need at least overtime.
The Jackets are beat to hell. They’re in the basement of the Metropolitan Division, have the worst goal differential in the East and are on a two-game winning streak! Seriously though, Columbus has more than $33M in cap hit on injured reserve. After spending in the offseason with an eye to compete in their division things… well they haven’t gone the Jackets’ way. On the bright side, they’re getting to learn a lot about a number of guys that they still have on ELC deals!
Dylan Larkin’s good friend Zach Werenski is the highest-paid of the IR cap hits right now, but Patrik Laine is right there too. Johnny Gaudreau is still healthy though and leading the team with 14 points (6G) in 16 games. Boone Jenner also still exists and I don’t like his name.
On paper, the Jackets score worse, stop goals worse, power play worse and penalty kill worse than Detroit. They’re better at faceoffs though.
This game has serious let-down potential written all over it.