Predicting the Opening Night Lines for the Columbus Blue Jackets

With the roster now complete, the Blue Jackets turn their eyes towards opening night. Today, we’ll predict the opening night lines for the team.

As we discussed in our immediate reaction yesterday, there weren’t really any major surprises for the team coming out of training camp. Nobody hit waivers yesterday, which means that no unexpected prospects or fringe players won a job. Emil Bemstrom and Liam Foudy both stick around, which may be the only real surprise, in my opinion. A lot of this likely points to the team wanting their prospects to be fully ready before pushing them into the NHL – which is the correct way to handle things. Let’s take a look at how this team might line up.

We’ll start with the easy part of the roster: the goaltenders. Elvis Merzlikins enters the season as the team’s starting goaltender. With Daniil Tarasov hitting the IR list yesterday, he’ll be backed up by new waiver acquisition Spencer Martin. I expect Elvis to start on opening night at Nationwide Arena.

On the back end, Zach Werenski will anchor the top pair. Late in the preseason, he was paired with both Andrew Peeke and Damon Severson. I think he’ll start the season alongside Peeke, partly because there’s a familiarity there; but also because Severson looked really good alongside fellow newcomer Ivan Provorov – those two will form the likely second pair. The third pairing will be anchored by Erik Gudbranson, who is joined by Jake Bean on the left side.

I have Adam Boqvist penciled in as the team’s seventh man this fall. He had some strong flashes in the preseason, but he seemed to be on the outside looking in as camp rolled on. He spent the last couple of preseason games playing in the “non-NHL” group, which is the main factor in my prediction here.

Defense corps:

Werenski – Peeke

Provorov – Severson

Bean – Gudbranson

Boqvist

This unit, as assembled, should be far superior to the one we played with last season. At least when healthy, this group should be able to help limit scoring chances against; while also chipping in offensively with each pair. In theory, this should work, but there may be some growing pains as guys get used to playing together and adjust to new roles in a new system.