Game Day Edition: Los Angeles Kings @ Columbus Blue Jackets

Los Angeles Kings @ Columbus Blue Jackets

Tuesday, January 21st, 2014, 7:00PM

Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio

Apr 18, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Legitimacy. That is what the Blue Jackets can gain with a win over the Los Angeles Kings tonight. I don’t think anyone will argue against the Western Conference being stronger than the East this season. Not to discredit what the Blue Jackets are doing (three of their six wins are against Tampa Bay, Washington, and the Rangers), a win over one of the better teams in the Pacific Division will take the Blue Jackets to an entire different level. Columbus continues to get positive coverage from the hockey media and that would grow exponentially with a win over Los Angeles. Not only would the win be a franchise record seventh in a row, but it would come against a team that has often given the Blue Jackets fits.

The Blue Jackets are going to face an angry Kings team tonight. Los Angeles is coming off a tough loss to the Boston Bruins yesterday, that saw them rally from a two goal deficit to tie the game in the third, only to give the game winning goal up 18 seconds later. The Jackets can either continue the Kings misfortune, or play their old role of punching bag to their former Western Conference rival.

Thursday will mark the Blue Jackets 1,000th game as a franchise. It would really be something if they can go into that game with their longest winning streak still intact.

Stats

• In case you lost count, Columbus has only lost once in 2014, a road loss against the St. Louis Blues. [ NHL.com ]
• Who’s hot for the Kings going into tonight’s game? Jeff Carter (of course!), who has scored in the last three games for the Kings [ NHL.com ]
• The Blue Jackets power play is now 12th overall in the league with a PP% of 19.0. By comparison, the Kings have a PP% of 15.2, which puts them 23rd overall. [ NHL.com ]
• Over the six game winning streak, Columbus has more than double the goals of their opponents. They have outscored them 25-12. [ BlueJackets.com ]
• Extra Skater.com has some great stats charts available on their team pages. Below is a chart of the Blue Jackets PDO for the last 20 games. Their PDO peaked on December 23rd against the Hurricanes at 104.8. While their have been some peaks and valleys since then, Columbus appears to be regressing back to the 100.0 neutral line.

Courtesy of Extra Skater.com

Noteable Noteables:

• Fedor Tyutin is still listed as questionable for tonight due to illness. We will have to wait for the morning skate to see if his condition has improved enough for him to play tonight. Tyutin took part in the morning skate and will be in the lineup tonight for the Jackets. It is expected that Dalton Prout will come out to make room.
• Sergei Bobrovsky will get the start in net tonight for Columbus.

The Union and Blue Song For the Game:

Bad Religion – Los Angeles Is Burning

LAX by Big D and the Kids Table was too NSFW to use as the Song For the Game (like 28 F bombs NSFW), so instead we will go with this great one from Bad Religion.