COLUMBUS -- The Columbus Blue Jackets’ extraordinary string of injuries continued with the news Saturday morning that left wing Boone Jenner will miss one to two months with a fracture in his back.

His injury comes a day after left wing Brian Gibbons (knee) was put on injured reserve and is expected to miss two to three weeks.

The Blue Jackets (13-15-3) will have 209 man games lost (6.53 per game) after playing the Chicago Blackhawks in Nationwide Arena on Saturday. The Blackhawks will total 58. Also, Columbus has three players who have played every game this season compared to 11 for Chicago.

“We’ve been dealing with a lot of injuries. It seems like you’re getting healthy then the injury bug comes back,” Columbus coach Todd Richards said. “It’s not just losing Boone. It’s losing Brian Gibbons. We’ve lost two left wingers, guys who have been playing some key minutes for us.”

COLUMBUS -- Recent history suggests the Washington Capitals and Columbus Blue Jackets will play more than 60 minutes at Nationwide Arena on Thursday.

Columbus (13-15-2) has won seven straight games and the Blue Jackets are the fifth team in NHL history to have four straight wins in a season that all were decided after the 60th minute.

Columbus last week won in overtime vs. the Philadelphia Flyers and the Capitals and defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in a shootout on Saturday before a 1-0 shootout win against Detroit on Tuesday.

"There's a better commitment, skating and defending, and when you do that you're setting yourself up to have success," Columbus coach Todd Richards said.

The Capitals (14-10-6) have been no slouch lately either. They have a 4-0-2 mark in the past six games, including losing an NHL-record 20-round shootout to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.

COLUMBUS -- Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Johnston said there is no update whether center Sidney Crosby has the mumps.

Crosby did not play on Friday in a win against the Calgary Flames and will not play against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Nationwide Arena on Saturday.

Johnston addressed the media prior to the game in Columbus and said the Penguins didn’t second guess themselves for allowing Crosby to go to Consol Energy Center on Friday morning despite swollen cheeks and not feeling well.

"Nobody thought he had the mumps," Johnston. "(The doctors) run their tests and didn’t feel he did, so he was cleared to come to the rink. After that, they decided to take more precautions. Because of the mumps scare and the concern for that, everybody is taking an extra step."

COLUMBUS – Star attractions will be missing, but that shouldn’t diminish the intensity when the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday for the first time since their First Round series in the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Penguins (19-6-3) defeated the Blue Jackets 4-3 on April 28 to win the best-of-seven series 4-2 and the Blue Jackets haven’t forgotten.

“They’re the team [that] knocked us out last year and ended our season,” Columbus left wing Matt Calvert said. “We want to win against them as much as we can. I know our fans love it when we beat these guys. Being so close [geographically] it builds that rivalry.”

COLUMBUS -- It would take a significant event Tuesday to take the spotlight off the first appearance in Nationwide Arena of Philadelphia Flyers left wing RJ Umberger since being traded June 23 after six seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Consider it done with the return to the Columbus lineup of Brandon Dubinsky, who makes his regular-season debut following abdominal surgery Oct. 8.

The Blue Jackets went 9-15-2 without Dubinsky but the center is coming back at a good time. Columbus has won three straight and is showing flashes of the hard-nosed style that Dubinsky epitomized last season when the Blue Jackets qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

COLUMBUS -- Brandon Dubinsky is close to playing his first game for the Columbus Blue Jackets this season after having abdominal surgery in October. His return can't come soon enough with the news Monday that center Artem Anisimov will miss two to three months because of a torn triceps.

Unfortunately for the injury-prone and struggling Blue Jackets, Dubinsky won't be in the lineup against the Florida Panthers at Nationwide Arena on Monday.

Dubinsky, Anisimov and Mark Letestu, who will miss his 15th straight game because of a groin injury, comprise three-fourths of the centers coach Todd Richards planned to have at the beginning of the season. Only leading scorer Ryan Johansen remains healthy.

"You lose three penalty killers, guys who you really rely on; three guys on faceoffs," Richards said. "We've had nights when we've been really good on faceoffs but there have been other nights we've been chasing the puck. It starts in the circle. Losing another center, we'll have to deal with."

COLUMBUS -- The Columbus Blue Jackets should have home-ice advantage playing the Vancouver Canucks on Friday, but Nationwide Arena has been anything but that so far in 2014-15.

During a stretch in which the Blue Jackets (6-13-2) have lost 13 of 15 games, they have also been defeated in six of seven games on their ice. Overall, Columbus is 3-7-1 at home.

"It's tough for the fans to watch," Columbus right wing Jared Boll said. "We've got to play better. In every game we play good for little spurts in time. That's not good enough."

If the home-ice woes weren’t worrisome enough, the Canucks (15-6-1) have been stellar on the road with an 8-3-0 mark, with wins in five of the past six games outside Vancouver. Columbus is the first of seven straight on the road for Vancouver.

"We play the same both at home and on the road," Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. "We've had good performances in different games that were enough to get us wins, but it's always hard to win on the road."

COLUMBUS -- The Columbus Blue Jackets are looking for someone, anyone, to take charge and end the tailspin that has them tied for the fewest points in the NHL.

Coach Todd Richards is putting center Ryan Johansen with Nick Foligno and Scott Hartnell on the top line in hopes of ending a three-game losing streak for the Blue Jackets when they play the Winnipeg Jets at Nationwide Arena on Tuesday.

"As a line we look at each other as guys who really need to step up for this team," Johansen said. "We're going to have to make sure we're on top of our game tonight."

COLUMBUS -- The Boston Bruins have been hit by injuries, the latest being a broken thumb sustained Tuesday by defenseman Adam McQuaid, but coach Claude Julien feels fortunate in one regard.

"We've had our fair share of injuries but I'm certainly not going to compare it to Columbus," he said of the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Bruins' opponent Friday at Nationwide Arena. "They've had a lot more than we've had."

The Blue Jackets are at 124 man-games lost to injury while Boston is at 42, with 32 of them (76.2 percent) being defensemen. McQuaid will add a hefty number to that total; he is expected to be out six to eight weeks. Also, forward Brad Marchand will miss a second straight game with an undisclosed injury.

"We've had injuries this year so everyone has to play his game," Bruins defenseman Matt Bartkowski said. "We don't want anybody to try and make up for what's not there."

COLUMBUS -- The morning skate for once didn't end with more injury bad news for the Columbus Blue Jackets, but the same couldn't be said for the Detroit Red Wings prior to the their game Tuesday at Nationwide Arena.

Detroit center Pavel Datsyuk, who has 11 points (five goals and six assists) in 10 games in an injury-plagued season, will not play against the Blue Jackets because of a groin injury.

The Blue Jackets (6-10-1), meanwhile, welcomed the news that leading scorer Ryan Johansen will play after coach Todd Richards on Monday had labeled him as questionable. Johansen (six goals and 20 points in 17 games) was tripped during a partial breakaway Saturday against the San Jose Sharks and rammed his legs into the goal post. He did not practice Monday.

"I wanted to take a day off. We were playing it safe. I'm good," Johansen said. "Nobody wants to be put in a situation when you're on a roll that you're missing a game."