Game Day Edition: Columbus Blue Jackets @ Carolina Hurricanes

Columbus Blue Jackets @ Carolina Hurricanes

Monday, January 27th, 2014, 7:00PM

PNC Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina

Jan 10, 2014; Columbus, OH, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Ryan Murray (27) and Carolina Hurricanes right wing Patrick Dwyer (39) go after a loose puck during the third period at Nationwide Arena. Columbus defeated Carolina 3-0. Mandatory Credit: Russell LaBounty-USA TODAY Sports

Due to their busy schedule this week, the Blue Jackets will have little time to let the streak ending loss to Buffalo sink in. Not even 24 hours after the final horn, the CBJ were aboard a flight to Raleigh to get in early for tonight’s match up against the Hurricanes. This will be the third meeting between the two Metropolitan Division rivals. Columbus has won both match ups; the first being a 4-3 win on December 23rd, and most recently a 3-0 shutout win on January 10th.

With the streak reset to zero, the Jackets have a chance to bounce back and prevent a losing streak from taking over. While Columbus has had little difficulty against Carolina this season, the Hurricanes coming into tonight’s game riding a three game winning streak. They last defeated the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, 6-3.

Luck simply was not on the Jackets side on Saturday again Buffalo, especially on the man advantage, where Columbus gave up two short handed goals. The Jackets power play was working like a well oiled machine as of late, so hopefully Saturday night was a fluke and will not become a new trend for the team.

All streaks must eventually come to an end. Now let’s see if the Jackets can pick up the pieces and start a new one.

Stats

• With Saturday’s two short handed goals against, the Jackets now have given up 5 on the season, which ties them for 5th most in the league with 8 other teams. The Hurricanes have only given up 2, third least in the league (only the Nashville Predators have not surrendered a short handed goal this season). [ NHL.com ]
• While the Jackets experienced some bad luck against the Sabres on Saturday, their PDO is still over 102% (102.6 to be exact). With some predicting that the Jackets will start to decline over the next few games, it will be interesting to see if this will be reflected in their PDO. Columbus has not dropped below 100% since December 9th, when they were at 98.8%. [ Extra Skater ]

Courtesy of Extra Skater.com

Noteable Noteables:

• Last night the Jackets activated Blake Comeau off the IR and recalled Tim Erixon from Springfield. For more details, see our report from last night.
• Originally Coach Todd Richards planned for Sergei Bobrovsky to be in net for both Saturday and tonight’s game. After a lackluster performance against the Sabres, Bobrovsky was pulled in favor of Curtis McElhinney. We await the morning skate to see if Bob will be given a chance for retribution, or if McElhinney will start to give Bobrovsky another day of rest.

The Union and Blue Song For the Game:

Social Distortion – “Bad Luck”

While the Jackets PDO (as discussed above) shows they have been getting very lucky lately, the CBJ winning streak ultimately succumbed to bad luck on Saturday night. Oh well, I hate to see the streak end, but at least it allowed me to switch to the next jersey in my rotation and we get to use this great Social Distortion song!