The opening night roster is almost set for the Columbus Blue Jackets. But, with two preseason games remaining, there are still three battles to keep an eye on.
It seems like head coach Dean Evason has pretty much locked in his top two lines ahead of the season. Last year's #1 line of Dmitri Voronkov, Sean Monahan, and Kirill Marchenko have been reunited and they look ready to go.
On the second line, a now healthy Boone Jenner brings some experience and sandpaper to the growing chemistry between Adam Fantilli and Kent Johnson.
The Jackets also return their top defense pairing from last year, with Zach Werenski and Dante Fabbro looking to pick up where they left off. After that, however: there are still some hard decisions to be made.
1. Where does Yegor Chinakhov go?
One of the bigger storylines for the team coming into camp this fall is talented winger Yegor Chinakhov. He voiced his displeasure over the summer in the form of a trade request.
Yet after clearing the air with Evason ahead of camp, he finds himself apparently battling for a job on the fourth line with a guy they claimed off of waivers last year.
Obviously, something has to give here. Yegor is one of the fastest skating, hardest shooting players in the entire NHL. He deserves a chance to show that he can be a player in this league, but he has to win a job first.
The Blue Jackets could always use a secondary scoring punch like this, so hopefully he can out-compete Zach Aston-Reese and showcase himself early and often this season. That would solve a lot of problems within the organization.
2. What will this team do in goal?
The situation in goal for the Blue Jackets is far from decided. Despite sending Ivan Fedotov through waivers at the end of last week, he remains at camp and continues to try to prove himself as a viable option.
In my opinion, there is only one certainty in goal for this team right now: Jet Greaves is going to be one of the two on the roster to start the year. They cannot risk losing him via waivers, and he's earned the chance to play in the NHL.
It's likely that the team will simply move ahead with Greaves and Elvis Merzlikins to start the year, now that Fedotov has been cleared for demotion. But, I don't think that is 100% decided just yet. A strong finish to the preseason could vault Ivan back into favor. He has been good so far.
Even if this continues into the early part of the season, it feels like the Jackets are poised to make a quick move and recall Fedotov at a moment's notice. He's their insurance policy against another year of underwhelming play in the crease.
3. Who wins the last roster spot?
Don Waddell and Dean Evason have already made all of their cuts at forward, with just 13 guys remaining at training camp. But, they will still need to reassign two players to get down to the regular season roster cap of 23.
One of those cuts will be in goal, and we assume that to be Fedotov. The other cut is going to come on defense, and that battle has come down to Christian Jaros or Daemon Hunt.
Either player will require waivers to be sent down, so there is a fear that they could lose one of these guys if another team decides to pluck them off of the wire.
These are two very different players, with Jaros being a big, heavy right-shot defender with some NHL experience; and Hunt being a younger, smaller, more mobile all-around player who has only a few NHL games under his belt.
They will probably be competing for a job in the Columbus press box, but it's an important role that could see them thrust into the NHL lineup at a moment's notice.
The final decisions should come quickly. The Jackets play their final home game of the preseason tonight against the Washington Capitals. They close out the preseason on Saturday night in Washington, a game that could be a full dress rehearsal for opening night.