The Jackets welcome Detroit to Nationwide as they look to continue turning their season around.
Detroit Red Wings at Columbus Blue Jackets
November 18, 2014 - 7:00 pm EST
Nationwide Arena - Columbus, Ohio
Radio - WWCD 102.5 - TV - Fox Sports Ohio
Opponent's Blog: Winging It In Motown
The Jackets are back in action after a strong weekend back-to-back sweep of Philadelphia and San Jose. In getting a couple of key pieces back from injury, the club played with more confidence. Detroit comes to town a bit of an enigma. they're in good shape in terms of points, but they've gotten a lot of points from overtime losses and are just 2-2-3 in their last seven. That said, they've played a pretty tough schedule thus far, too. So, how good are they? Hard to say.
In an interesting flip of the script, this Detroit team no longer thrives on offense alone. This team thus far has been getting it down with defense, sporting top-ten goals-against and PK numbers. The PK has been especially good, and an interesting matchup tonight will be that PK against the Jackets' suddenly-humming Power Play unit. The Jackets have scored PPGs in 13 of their 17 games thus far, and are 7-for-16 (43.8%) in their last four games. They will face a tough test tonight to keep that trend going.
Columbus needs to continue earning as many points as they can right now, as the rest of their division is scuffling. The Jackets are five points out of third place with a game in hand. So, a regulation win would effectively put them three points out of third place. In other words, as bad as the Jackets have been, the rest of the division hasn't exactly pulled away.
Columbus is icing the same lineup from Saturday night, so hopefully they can get the same result. Looks like Pavel Datsyuk is a no-go for Detroit, which obviously helps Columbus a little bit.
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets
(6-10-1, 13 Points; 7th division, 14th conference)
| Brian Gibbons | Ryan Johansen | Nick Foligno |
| Scott Hartnell | Boone Jenner | Cam Atkinson |
| Adam Cracknell | Artem Anisimov | Alexander Wennberg |
| Corey Tropp | Michael Chaput | Jared Boll |
| Jack Johnson | Dalton Prout |
| Tim Erixon | James Wisniewski |
| Jordan Leopold | David Savard |
| Sergei Bobrovsky |
| Curtis McElhinney |
Detroit Red Wings
(8-4-5, 21 Points; 4th Division, 6th Conference)
| Gustav Nyquist | Henrik Zetterberg | Johan Franzen |
| Justin Abdelkader | Riley Sheahan | Tomas Tatar |
| Daniel Cleary | Darren Helm | Tomas Jurco |
| Drew Miller | Luke Glendening | Joakim Andersson |
| Niklas Kronwall | Jonathan Ericsson |
| Kyle Quincey | Danny DeKeyser |
| Brendan Smith | Brian Lashoff |
| Jimmy Howard |
| Petr Mrazek |
Season Series
11/18/14 - Detroit at Columbus
12/16/14 - Columbus at Detroit
03/12/15 - Columbus at Detroit
Head to Head Stats
| Detroit | Columbus | |
| 2.65 (17) | GPG | 2.59 (19) |
| 2.29 (8) | GAPG | 3.47 (29) |
| 17.6% (19) | PP% | 24.6% (4) |
| 88.5% (3) | PK% | 76.2% (26) |
| Gustav Nyquist, 8 | G leader | Nick Foligno, 9 |
| Henrik Zetterberg, 13 | A leader | Ryan Johansen, 14 |
| Henrik Zetterberg, 17 | Pts leader | Ryan Johansen, 20 |
| Justin Abdelkader, 18 | PIM leader | Jared Boll, 30 |
| 2-3-3 | Road/Home | 3-5-0 |
| 4-3-3 | Last 10 | 2-7-1 |
| 11/16 vs. Montreal, L 4-1 | Last Game | 11/15 vs. San Jose, W 2-1 |