Just when we thought the Blue Jackets were going to have to make some tough roster decisions, the injuries started to hit again. On Friday night in Utah, James van Riemsdyk avoided the worst outcome after taking a high stick to his mouth. He'll need a bunch of dental work and repairs, but for the most part he will be okay.
Unfortunately, we cannot say the same thing for at least two of the Blue Jackets who were injured on Sunday night in Dallas. First, defenseman Dante Fabbro took a Mason Marchment elbow to the head that sent him to the locker room. As if the injury wasn't bad enough, no penalty was called on this play and the Stars actually scored as a result. Brutal.
Fabbro would not return to the game, leaving the top defense pair for the Blue Jackets at half power. That was before Zach Werenski would leave the game and miss much of the second period with what looked like a shoulder issue. While Zach did return later, I'm actually still concerned about this one. He did not look comfortable for the rest of the night.
It didn't stop there. Just after Zach went down the tunnel with his ailment, Kirill Marchenko took a puck to the face while sitting at the end of the bench. An unfortunate Denton Mateychuk dump in missed the mark and hit the unsuspecting Marchenko. News this morning is worse than we all likely feared: a broken jaw that will sideline him for 6-8 weeks.
The Jackets are clawing for points in the Eastern Conference, and can ill afford to be without one of its best offensive weapons for too long. They will get a slight reprieve due to the 4 Nations Faceoff that is coming up, but if Marchenko is going to be out until early April, their playoff hopes may have just been dashed.
Blame the refs for this one?
Outside of the awful luck last night, I would be remiss if I didn't touch on the officiating. Let's face the facts here: they were downright awful. There were three Stars goals that directly resulted from illegal plays.
First, the Fabbro hit was not only a penalty - in a lot of circumstances, that might have been called a 5 minute major on the ice. That's an ugly high elbow, right to the face of the CBJ defender. To not make a call there and at least review it is embarrassing. It's even worse that the offender scored the game tying goal just seconds later, with the defenseman clearly ailing from the hit.
Second, the Stars were again allowed to tie the game after a missed penalty directly led to a goal. Kent Johnson clearly gets grabbed at the hip and spun around on this play. The Stars fans will tell you that he held the forechecker's stick and dove, but anyone who has actually watched a hockey game before will attest that Kent was pulled down, and probably grabbed the stick as a last ditch effort to not get scored on.
Finally, this is the icing on the cake. Here is a screenshot of the eventual game winning goal, which was ruled to be a legal deflection under the crossbar. Looks high to me, but you can judge for yourself:
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) February 3, 2025
I'm not typically one to complain about officiating, but in a 5-3 loss where you can visually pick their calls apart on the replays of three goals, it's hard not to complain about the officiating. I would love to see the refs made available to explain their judgment on all three of these plays.
Now, the task for the Jackets is moving on and finding offense without one of their key top line players. And, likely half of their top defense pair. The going just got really tough.