Columbus Blue Jackets at Carolina Hurricanes Game Preview

The Columbus Blue Jackets have had a decent start to the season, winning the first game of the season and falling to Chicago in the second. However there’s still 80 more games to go in the season, and Carolina may be a team to keep an eye on this season.

After losing in Chicago, Columbus Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella decided to make some substantial line changes for tonight’s game in Carolina. Josh Anderson will be making his season debut, taking the roster spot of former Ohio State standout Zac Dalpe.

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The Columbus Blue Jackets and Carolina Hurricanes are similar in one regard, the young defensive corps that they both hope will continue to improve for the coming seasons. The oldest defenseman in tonight’s game for Carolina would be Klas Dahlbeck, who is 26 years old, followed by co-captain Justin Faulk. Meanwhile for Columbus, the oldest on defense is 31-year-old Jack Johnson.

Offense is the biggest question mark for the Hurricanes. They have elite scorer Jeff Skinner, however he’s the only player who is almost guaranteed to be successful. Sebastian Aho had a solid rookie season last season, falling just short of 50 points. Jordan Staal is a very good two-way player, but his point totals are not what they should be given his role as a top line center. In Carolina’s defense though, the offseason acquisition of Justin Williams did add another top scoring option for the Hurricanes.

The Blue Jackets should have the forward advantage, however if the Carolina defense plays on top of their game, it will be difficult to find much room to score.

The projected goaltenders for tonight’s game are Sergei Bobrovsky for the Columbus Blue Jackets and Scott Darling for the Carolina Hurricanes per DailyFaceoff.com.

The following lines are the projected lines from RosterResource.com:

COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS

Dubois — Wennberg — Bjorkstrand

Panarin — Foligno (C) — Atkinson

Calvert — Dubinsky (A) — Anderson

Milano — Sedlak — Hannikainen

Werenski — Jones

Johnson — Savard

Murray– Carlsson

Bobrovsky

Korpisalo

CAROLINA HURRICANES

Aho — Staal (C) — Lindholm

Teravainen — Rask — Williams

Skinner (A) — Ryan — Kuokkanen

Nordstrom — Kruger — McGinn

Slavin — Pesce

Hanifin — Faulk (C)

Dahlbeck — Fleury

Darling

Ward

Tonight’s game will certainly be more of a challenge for the Columbus Blue Jackets than most people expect. Not only is this going to be an interesting game tonight, but these two teams are certainly a big part of the Metropolitan Division’s future.

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