The Blue Jackets roster is down to its final few decisions, who makes the cut?

The Blue Jackets re-assigned seven players on Wednesday, leaving them with 32 players remaining at camp. Five of those players are injured, which means that the Blue Jackets roster is down to 27 - leaving the team with its final few decisions. Who makes the cut?

We can't count the injured players because they aren't actively competing for jobs. Even if we could, the only player sitting out injured that would be on the opening night roster is forward Justin Danforth. Excluding the list of injured players, the Jackets have four cuts left ahead of Monday's roster deadline.

To get from 27 down to 23 shouldn't be too difficult, aside from a couple of decisions. At a quick glance, there are 9 players who are on the roster bubble. Here is the full rundown of players remaining at camp:

18 players listed above are going to be on the NHL roster on opening night. That leaves five spots for the remaining nine players, and there is some really healthy competition here. The most interesting battle remains on the blue line.

I expect the team to keep 8 defensemen to start the season. That means that just one cut remains here, with 4 guys battling for 3 jobs: Denton Mateychuk, David Jiricek, Jake Christiansen, and Jordan Harris.

Before camp, I would have bet good money that Jiricek was an opening night lock. But during camp and through most of the preseason, I'm not so sure. Even though he's a much needed right-hand shot, he's struggled in comparison to the other players around him. Still, I don't see the team sending him back for a third season of AHL development. He's stagnated in his development, so I feel like he will get a shot to play in the NHL.

Harris also seemed like a lock, but I'm not sure he's done enough to separate himself from the pack. His biggest competition was probably going to be Christiansen, who has certainly been a standout player since camp started. If we have to choose between these two, Christiansen gets the edge for me. Would the team risk losing the only piece they got in return for Patrik Laine, however?

This brings us to Mateychuk, who has made this decision infinitely more difficult than most people probably expected. He's arguably been the best defenseman - possibly even the best skater - for the Blue Jackets at training camp this year. How can you send him to the American Hockey League, when you've preached all summer about building a culture based on rewarding merit?

Cutting that last defenseman is going to be really difficult. I think the two guys that would be easier to send down - Mateychuk and Christiansen - have outperformed the two guys we expected to make the team - Jiricek and Harris. At least enough to make the decision interesting.

Of course, the team could keep them all around and move on from a certain veteran presence that probably shouldn't be on the ice anyhow. That would be the easiest move to make, in my opinion. Let's look at the battles up front, and what's going on in goal.