PREVIEW: Blue Jackets head out west to take on Ducks

With two critical games remaining before the Christmas break, the Blue Jackets are having a hard finding holiday cheer.

Losses in six of the last seven games – as well as 10 of the last 13 – are starting to make clear the reality the team is in need of a turnaround quickly. The playoff line remains in sight – Columbus is just six points behind Philadelphia and Boston, who are tied for eighth in the Eastern Conference – but the Blue Jackets need to start adding points to the bank before the hill becomes too big to climb.

Thursday’s 5-2 setback vs. Minnesota at Nationwide Arena bore a close resemblance to many of the previous losses. There were stretches of excellent play, but also enough mistakes and momentum-changing swings against the Blue Jackets – not to mention three more third-period goals against, though two were of the empty-net variety – that they couldn’t get points against one of the NHL’s hottest teams.

"I feel like it's the same thing we've been saying,” defenseman Zach Werenski said afterward. “We're playing well enough to win, but it's getting old that we keep losing. Enough is enough. It's unacceptable, and I get the whole thing where you have to stay positive and move forward, but at the end of the day this is getting outrageous. We're a good hockey team, and we're losing games. So maybe we're not a good hockey team. I don't know. At the end of the day you have to win games to be a good team. It's frustrating."

The numbers showed the Blue Jackets and Wild played pretty much to a draw at 5-on-5, as per Natural Stat Trick, both teams had 55 shot attempts at even strength and created eight high-danger chances, while Columbus had a 29-28 edge in scoring chances.

Yet Minnesota scored goals at critical times – on a second-period power play and in the final 10 minutes of the third – to make the difference.

“We need a little more,” head coach Dean Evason said. “For two periods, we’re pretty good, and hanging in there, and then we make some pretty silly mistakes, right? So obviously we have to clean that up. We have games that are winnable, and/or to get to overtime or to a shootout at the very least, and we haven’t did that, and we didn’t do that here tonight.”

Columbus made a major trade Friday night before the holiday roster freeze, adding forward Mason Marchment from Seattle in exchange for a pair of draft picks. Marchment had 22 goals each of the past two years with Dallas before heading to the Kraken, and the hope is he'll be able to add to the cause when he arrives.

The Blue Jackets have tripped a long way from home to try to get back on track, as the pre-holiday slate concludes on the West Coast. Columbus will take on Anaheim tonight before facing Los Angeles on Sunday, and points are critical to go out on a high note before the team breaks up for the break.

“At this point, we have to figure out how to win games,” defenseman Ivan Provorov said. “Otherwise, our season will be done early. We can’t fall behind now because it would be too hard to catch up. We have to figure out how to win, and we gotta figure it out quick.”

Scratches: F Luca Del Bel Belluz, F Mason Marchment, D Jake Christiansen

Injured Reserve/Non-Roster: F Brendan Gaunce (personal), F Mathieu Olivier (upper body injury), D Erik Gudbranson (upper body injury)

Roster Report: The Blue Jackets traveled to California on Friday and did not practice, but they did recall Del Bel Belluz to add a forward to the roster while Gaunce is with his family for the birth of his child. Marchment was added in a late-night deal Friday before the roster freeze and will have to join the Blue Jackets before his entrance into the lineup.

This Day in CBJ History

Dec. 20, 2005: David Vyborny suffers a rib injury in a game vs. Detroit. He would go on to miss the next night’s contest vs. Dallas, ending his then-franchise record mark of 194 consecutive games played. In addition, Columbus falls by a 4-3 score in a shootout for the first time in franchise history after going 3-0 in its first three tries.

Dec. 20, 2014: Jack Johnson scores the deciding goal in the ninth round of the shootout as the Blue Jackets earn a 3-2 victory vs. Chicago at Nationwide Arena. Only Jeremy Morin for Columbus and Andrew Shaw for Chicago tallied in the first eight rounds in what was the Jackets’ sixth straight game that required extra time. Sergei Bobrovsky stops 39 shots in regulation and OT and eight more in the shootout to earn the win.

Dec. 20, 2019: Cam Atkinson scores his 20th goal of the season – doing so on a penalty shot – in the Blue Jackets’ 34th game of the campaign, a 2-1 win at New Jersey. Atkinson becomes the second fastest player in CBJ history to get to 20 goals in a season, trailing only Rick Nash, who needed 31 games in 2003-04.

The Numbers Game

With two goals Tuesday, Zach Werenski became just the first CBJ defenseman to score multiple goals in consecutive games and just the fourth NHL blueliner to do so in the last 10 years. He remains second among NHL defensemen in goals (13) and points (3), first in shots on goal (128), second in average ice time (26:46) and is first in multipoint games (1). He has points in 15 of the last 1 games (9-18-27, tied for fourth in NHL in that span) and an 11-game home point streak (7-13-20). ... Blue Jackets defensemen have scored 27 goals this season, tied with Washington for the most in the NHL. … Adam Fantilli has scored 36 goals in 2025, fourth most ever by a CBJ player in a calendar year behind just Rick Nash (43 in 2009, and 39 in 2006) and Cam Atkinson (42 in 2018). ... Kent Johnson has four assists in the last four games. ... Miles Wood is one goal away from 100 in his NHL career. ... Werenski is four assists shy of becoming the first CBJ player to notch 300 career assists, while Jenner is three points away from becoming the fourth player in team history with 400 points after Nash (547), Werenski (422) and Atkinson (402).

Know The Foe: Anaheim Ducks

Head coach: Joel Quenneville (First season)

Team stats: Goals per game: 3.43 (3rd) | Scoring defense: 3.43 (30th) | PP: 17.2 percent (22nd) | PK: 75.9 percent (27th)

The narrative: The Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007 and went to the final in 2003, all while making the playoffs 12 of 15 seasons from 2003-18. But eventually, the core aged out and it was time to pay the piper, as a painful rebuild meant Anaheim has gone seven seasons without postseason hockey. That seems likely to change this season, as a talented young core and the structure brought in by Quenneville has the Ducks in contention in the Pacific Division as we near the halfway point.

Scoring leaders: The youthful charge has arrived in Anaheim with recent first-round picks Leo Carlsson (2023), Cutter Gauthier (2022), Beckett Sennecke (2024) and Mason McTavish (2021) leading the way. Carlsson tops the Ducks with 41 points (17 goals, 24 assists), while Gauthier – acquired from Philadelphia two seasons ago – has a team-best 18 goals among his 36 points. Sennecke is first among NHL rookies with 11 goals and 28 points, while McTavish has a 7-14-21 line. Longtime Duck Troy Terry (10-25-35) and new acquisition Chris Kreider (13 goals) add to the mix. An exciting young defensive corps featuring Jackson LaCombe (6-15-21) and Olen Zellweger (5-9-14) adds to the equation.

In net: The emergence of young Czech Lukáš Dostál led to the offseason trade of Anaheim stalwart John Gibson, and Dostal leads the way with an 12-7-1 record, 2.91 GAA and .899 save percentage. Petr Mrazek (3-3-1, 3.85 GAA, .868 SV%) recently came off injured reserve and is the backup with Ville Husso, who started Tuesday, assigned to AHL San Diego.

What's new: Anaheim started to come on last year, as the team’s 35 wins were the most since 2018-19, and a seven-game winning streak in late October and early November cemented the Ducks as a team on the rise. The Ducks have played once since Tuesday’s 4-3 overtime loss in Columbus, losing 8-3 last night vs. Dallas in their return home after a five-game road swing.

Trending: The CBJ win earlier this week improved Columbus to 2-4-3 vs. Anaheim the past five seasons, but the Blue Jackets have dropped three of four in Orange County. Anaheim hasn’t scored a power-play goal vs. Columbus since the 2015-16 season, going scoreless on 46 such chances.

Former CBJ: None