PREVIEW: Blue Jackets ready to shake off the rust vs. Bruins

BLUE JACKETS vs. BRUINS

Exhibition game

Thursday, 7 p.m. ET, Scotiabank Arena, Toronto (FOX Sports Ohio Plus, NHL Network, CBJ app, FOX Sports app, 97.1 The Fan)

For the first time in 145 days, it's a Blue Jackets gameday.

Since beating Vancouver on March 8, the Blue Jackets have watched the world change mightily because of a pandemic, which resulted in the season being paused indefinitely before the team's scheduled game March 12 vs. Pittsburgh.

Since then, the Blue Jackets sat through more than two months of inactivity, a month of voluntary workouts, then two weeks of training camp and another few days of practices since arriving at the NHL hub in Toronto.

And John Tortorella, for one, is ready to play see a different color jersey on the ice, even if Thursday's contest vs. Boston won't count for anything in the standings.

"We just haven't played a game in so long, I think it'll put a little bit of edge into a game," Tortorella said. "All they've been doing is practice. Everybody is sick of practicing, I'll tell you that right now. You can talk to any of the other coaches, I'm sure everybody is sick of practicing and they want to play the game. This will get us closer. I just don't think you can ever simulate what will happen in any playoff or play-in game here with an exhibition game."

While the head coach sees something that will vary in intensity between what will happen Sunday when the Blue Jackets begin their best-of-five series against Toronto and the five scrimmages the team staged during its training camp in Columbus, the players see something that will help them ramp up after being off the ice for so long.

That's especially true for someone like Cam Atkinson, who suffered an injury in February and has had an even longer layoff than his CBJ teammates.

"For me, I haven't played in a real game in over five months, so (I'm looking forward to) just getting my feet underneath me," Atkinson said. "We scrimmaged a lot in Phase 3 back in Columbus. It's nice to go against a different team other than your teammates. Not that we have a lot of history, but just the history of last year with the Bruins and the second round there. It's going to be good to work on our systems that we've been working on in Phase 3 and whatnot and be ready to go. It's going to be fun."

For the coaches, Thursday night will be about tinkering with line combinations, seeing how the team looks with the lights on, and making any last-minute evaluations about their squad.

For the players, it's just a chance to knock the rust off in an effort to be as ready as possible once Sunday night comes.

"It's just about getting puck touches back, the flow of the game, different situations, special teams and getting our touches and getting our reads down," Seth Jones said. "I think that's what I'm gonna do in the exhibition game, just try to get that game feel back."

Know the Foe

The Blue Jackets and Bruins are no strangers after last year's six-game Stanley Cup Playoffs quarterfinal series, but both are on slightly different paths right now.

While Columbus is using the game as a tune-up for its best-of-five series with Toronto that starts Sunday, the Bruins are getting ready for the round robin that will determine the top four seeds in the Eastern Conference when things get cut down to 16 teams.

If any team was hurt by the season shutting down in March, it might have been Boston, which in the eyes of many observers was the best team in the NHL at the time with a 44-14-12 record, including a 16-4-0 mark in the last 20 games before the pause.

The Bruins also might have had the best line in the game with Patrice Bergeron centering high-scoring wingers David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand. Pastrnak's 48 goals tied Alex Ovechkin for the NHL lead at the time of the pause, while his 95 points were good for tied for third in the league. Marchand wasn't too far behind, placing sixth in the NHL with 87 points including 28 goals, while Bergeron had a 31-25-56 line.

The playoff-tested Bruins also have plenty of secondary scoring thanks to such names as high-scoring defenseman and power-play maestro Torey Krug (9-40-49), center David Krejci (13-30-43) and goal-scoring options Charlie Coyle (13-30-43) and Jake DeBrusk (19-16-35).

Boston also led the league with just 2.39 goals allowed per game, a credit to a defense led by Krug and Charlie McAvoy (plus-24) as well as goalies Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak. Rask is yet again a Vezina Trophy finalist thanks to his 26-8-6 record, 2.12 goals-against average and .929 save percentage, while the veteran Halak (18-6-6, 2.39, .919) is a dependable backup.

3 Keys to the Game

Goalie talk: Tortorella said the Blue Jackets plan to split goaltenders Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins during the game before making a final decision on who will start Sunday's Game 1 vs. Toronto. They'll be judged on their total body of work, but this is one last chance to impress.

Drawing lines: Tortorella said he might cycle through a couple of different line combinations during the game as he still tries to find the best combinations. The lines were reconfigured Wednesday after being the same Monday and Tuesday.

Embrace the weird: It'll be both teams' first chance to play in a Scotiabank Arena that won't have fans but has been reconfigured into a stage-like venue for television. Getting used to the venue will be one of the most important points of the evening.

Of Note

Columbus beat Boston in both meetings this season, capturing a 2-1 game in overtime in Beantown on Jan. 2 before a 3-0 blanking of the Bruins in Nationwide Arena on Jan. 14. … Alexander Wennberg (1-1-2) and Nathan Gerbe (0-2-2) led Columbus in scoring vs. the Bruins this year, while Pierre-Luc Dubois, Sonny Milano, Riley Nash and Kevin Stenlund also scored goals. … Elvis Merzlikins started both games vs. Boston and allowed just one goal with a .983 save percentage. … Ohio AAA Blue Jackets product Sean Kuraly, a Dublin native, had a 6-17-23 line this year for the Bruins in 69 games.

Projected Lineup

(Subject to change)

Nick Foligno - Alex Wennberg - Cam Atkinson

Alexandre Texier - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Oliver Bjorkstrand

Gus Nyquist - Boone Jenner - Liam Foudy

Eric Robinson - Riley Nash - Emil Bemstrom

Zach Werenski - Seth Jones

Vladislav Gavrikov - David Savard

Ryan Murray - Dean Kukan

Scott Harrington - Markus Nutivaara

Joonas Korpisalo, Elvis Merzlikins

Scratches:Josh Anderson (injury), Nathan Gerbe, Stefan Matteau Devin Shore, Kevin Stenlund, Gabriel Carlsson, Adam Clendening, Andrew Peeke, Matiss Kivlenieks

Roster Report: These are the lines Columbus used in Wednesday's practice. Columbus can dress up to 20 skaters instead of the usual 18, but Tortorella said Monday the team might not take advantage of that. The team has skated the same 20 players in its game group practices each day this week since arriving in Toronto, and the two goalies are expected to split the time.