Coming off consecutive home shutouts, the Columbus Blue Jackets are looking for a spark to get their offense going. On Monday night against the New Jersey Devils, they have decided to make a major change.
The Blue Jackets will show a different-looking top-six. In the process, we will see an old line reunited.
New Look Top-6
While the bottom-six will remain in tact from Saturday’s game against the New York Rangers, the top-six will be revamped. The all-Russian line of Yegor Chinakhov, Dmitri Voronkov and Kirill Marchenko will play together on one line.
Then on the other line, it will be Adam Fantilli centering Boone Jenner and Kent Johnson. For head coach Dean Evason, they had to try something to get this offense going during their most important stretch of the season.
“When you don’t have success, you gotta tweak some things,” Evason said. “And so we’re moving some pieces around.”
Those new look lines were used at the end of the game Saturday. Evason admitted liking what he saw.
“We went to it. Those two lines in particular went to it at the end of the game. We liked what we saw. We obviously had a little sample of it. Did we have success right away with it? No. You always try to find a wake-up call. Not that we’ve played poorly but we haven’t played like we can play. And we’ve gotta get back to that. There’s different ways to try to do that as a coaching staff and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
While the personnel itself won’t change from Saturday in terms of the skaters, there is one change to the lineup. Goaltender Jet Greaves will get the start on Monday with Daniil Tarasov backing up.
The defense pairs will remain the same as Saturday. This means another game for Jack Johnson paired with Damon Severson on the third pair. The top-four will remain together for now.
As for the injured, Erik Gudbranson got another skate in. It’s only a matter of days until we see him back. In addition, Jake Christiansen joined the morning skate as he’s working his way back from an upper-body injury. So did Cole Sillinger. Sean Monahan did not join the main group on Monday.
Werenski & Jenner Remain Confident
Although the results haven’t been there of late, the Blue Jackets remain confident that the goals will eventually come. A win on Monday would put the Blue Jackets back in WC2.
Here is what they each had to say Monday morning about where the team is at.
“We’re two points out of a playoff spot. We’re in a great spot,” Werenski said. “Obviously we’ve lost a few but nothing we haven’t faced before this year, a little adversity. So I think we’re all in a good spot. We know we have to get a win tonight. If you would have told us we’d be two points out with 16-17 games left, I think we’d be excited about it. That mindset is still the same.”
“Things get ramped up this time of year and mistakes get more magnified. But I feel like we’re just having fun. We’re enjoying it,” Werenski continued. “It’s one of those things where you have to learn when you’re going through this process. You have to learn a lot of things and learn how to play. It’s probably been a little more defensive than it has been throughout the year. It’s harder to score goals as we’ve seen but I think in saying that, we’re enjoying that. We’re in a great spot right now. We know if we play well the rest of the season, there’s a good chance we can play in the playoffs.”
“We just trust our game,” Jenner said. “The style we’ve played all year. Just do that right now. That’s gotten us to this point and kept us going. For us, we don’t have to change anything. We just play Jackets’ hockey and that’s treated us well. We have to play that way to have success in the series. For us, it’s just playing to our identity as a team.”
“This time of year, these games are big and there’s pressure,” Jenner continued. “But that’s what we want as athletes to be in this position to have these games down the stretch. They’re only going to get more and more important here. 16 left, these games are huge for us. They’re playoff games for us. As a group, we want to be in that spot. You don’t want to be in the other spot. All the pressure is fine. I think this group can handle it. We’ve been through a lot throughout the whole season with adversity. So for us, we just keep going.”
Blue Jackets Expected Lines/Pairs
- Yegor Chinakhov – Dmitri Voronkov – Kirill Marchenko
- Boone Jenner – Adam Fantilli – Kent Johnson
- Zach Aston-Reese – Justin Danforth – Mathieu Olivier
- James van Riemsdyk – Sean Kuraly – Luke Kunin
- Zach Werenski – Dante Fabbro
- Denton Mateychuk – Ivan Provorov
- Jack Johnson – Damon Severson
- Jet Greaves starts.
- Daniil Tarasov backs up.
- Scratches: Jordan Harris (healthy), Jake Christiansen (upper-body), Elvis Merzlikins (personal), Christian Fischer (healthy).
- Jake Allen starts in net for New Jersey, per Sheldon Keefe. Erik Haula will return to their lineup with Daniel Sprong coming out.