Time: 7:00 pm ET
Place: Nationwide Arena
TV: FS-D+, FS-O
Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket, 1270 AM
Blue Jackets Blog: The Cannon
Don’t look now but the Red Wings are coming off of their most impressive win of the season after downing the Dallas Stars 4-2 on Sunday evening. Granted, it was only Detroit’s second victory of the year so far, but it was also the team’s best overall group effort to date.
Columbus, on the other hand, are third in the Metropolitan Division and most recently defeated the Buffalo Sabres 5-4 in OT. The Jackets have also won two of their last three contests. CBJ also bested the Wings in overtime on opening night earlier this month.
Like Detroit, the Blue Jackets have had their struggles early on in the 2018-2019 NHL Season. The team played the first few weeks of the season without one of their top young blue-liners, Seth Jones, who recently just returned from a lower-body injury. Once again, like the Wings, Columbus has surprisingly received some less-than-stellar goalie performances, most notably from Sergei Bobrovsky who has posted a 3.87 GAA and a .872 save percentage.
Joonas Korpisalo, who Detroit faced on opening night, has also struggled between the pipes, averaging 3.46 GAA and a .897 Sv%. Both goalies have fared much better in the past and both player’s numbers are quite surprising.
Despite Columbus’ problems on the back-end, the team’s roster features many players up front who can do a lot of damage and help carry the team to a win on any given night. Artemi Panarin leads the team with 15 points (5 G, 10 A) and rounds out a cast of talented players who have been quite the “Red Wings Killers” over the last couple of seasons.
Detroit may be without Frans Nielsen and Andreas Athanasiou for the game, which obviously isn’t good news, but Detroit will have to make do with what they have. If the Wings hope to win consecutive games for the first time in 2018, they will need to play just as well, if not better, than they did against Dallas on Sunday. Either way, it will be a tough road match-up for the young and rebuilding Wings.
Check back later today for all the game day updates and latest news!
