Blue Jackets recall Luca del bel Belluz, place Erik Gudbranson on IR

As the first long road trip of the season has just gotten under way, the Blue Jackets have run into injury trouble.

Already short defensemen Erik Gudbranson and Denton Mateychuk, the Jackets lost center Sean Monahan to an undisclosed injury last night in Calgary.

His prognosis must not be great, because the team recalled prospect Luca del bel Belluz from the American Hockey League's Cleveland Monsters this morning.

To clear space for him, they have assigned Gudbranson onto the IR list as he continues to miss time with an undisclosed injury of his own (rumored to be a hip problem).

Gudbranson is missing games for the second time already this season. He's only gotten into 4 of the first 13 Blue Jackets games, registering 0 points, a -2 rating and adding 6 penalty minutes.

The team has fared pretty well without him, but if they are going to be without Monahan for any length of time, things could be tough. Their top line center has only scored 6 points (1 goal) through 13 games, but he has an impressive +8 rating and is one of the team's main go-to guys for faceoffs.

This will test the added center depth for the Blue Jackets in a big way. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the rest of the lineup.

In Monahan's absence, look for Adam Fantilli to be promoted off of the second line to play in between Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov. Fantilli is off to a bit of a slow start himself, with just 6 points (2 goals) in the team's first 13 games.

We hope history repeats itself in one way. When Monahan went down with an injury last January, Fantilli's game rose to previously uncharted levels. He went on a ridiculous run of scoring to finish out the second half of the season. Can he do it again?

Then, we have to wonder who centers the second line? Could it be the player they recalled this morning?

Luca del bel Belluz has earned his chance.

Quietly, Luca del bel Belluz continues to develop into a really good center prospect. Through 7 games for the Cleveland Monsters, he's scored 3 goals and 5 points; tying him with Mikael Pyyhtia and Jordan Dumais (only 4gp) for the team's scoring lead.

Last season, he posted 27 goals and 53 points with the Monsters, and added 2 goals and 8 points in 15 games with the Blue Jackets. Luca may be the most NHL ready prospect in the system, so it will be interesting to see where head coach Dean Evason slots him in, and how he performs.

We will start getting the answers to these questions beginning Saturday night, as the Jackets take on the Canucks in Vancouver.