Blue Jackets face first injury adversity of the season as defenseman will miss tonight's game

For the first time this season, the Columbus Blue Jackets are facing injury adversity. Tonight, Jake Christiansen will enter the CBJ lineup as they take on the New Jersey Devils at Nationwide.

He will slot in because Erik Gudbranson will miss the game with an undisclosed upper-body injury, per head coach Dean Evason. The injury was suffered Saturday night in Minnesota.

Gudbranson played just one third period shift against the Wild, lasting only 24 seconds before he left the game and missed the final 18:35.

The 6'5", 222 pound defenseman is an important piece of the back-end for the Blue Jackets. He was paired with sophomore Denton Mateychuk, and the two formed a bit of an effective odd couple. Guddy's experience, size and physicality will definitely be missed, for however long he's out.

But, as they say: with injury comes opportunity. This is Jake Christiansen's first chance to make an impact for this team this season, and I'm confident that he's going to be just fine.

During the preseason, Jake was one of the best defensemen on the team, effective at both ends of the ice and in all situations. Though he doesn't bring the same size or physicality to the lineup, he's a good skater who will help this team get out of its own end and up the ice.

Christiansen got into 68 games with the Blue Jackets last season, scoring 2 goals and 15 points while carrying a -5 rating. He also had 17 penalty minutes while playing an average of 12:59 per game.

That was his first full campaign with the Jackets, though he had gotten into a combined 44 games spread across the prior three seasons.

This will be a young pairing, but there is a lot to like.

Chrisitansen looks to be slotting in next to Mateychuk on the third defense pair tonight. It's going to be a tough test against the high flying New Jersey Devils, but I'm interested to see how they do.

Both of these guys can skate, and both are more than capable of moving the puck. The key here will be not spending too much time in their own end. If they can get the puck down the ice, they could be dangerous in the offensive zone.

Look for them to play sheltered minutes, at least until they can gain the trust of the coaching staff. It will be interesting to see how Jake Christiansen looks in a regular season game, after such a strong training camp.