PREVIEW: Blue Jackets start road trip against Lightning

When the Blue Jackets were rising up the Eastern Conference standings before the Olympic break, the biggest factor in the squad’s improved play was team defense. 

Columbus allowed just 2.18 goals per game in head coach Rick Bowness’ first 11 contests, winning 10 of them, and on top of that the Blue Jackets were one of the best teams in the NHL at limiting teams’ chances from dangerous areas. 

It hasn’t been quite the same story since returning to action, though, as Columbus has allowed at least four goals in five out of the seven games while going 3-1-3. That includes consecutive 5-4 overtime losses to Utah on Saturday and Los Angeles on Monday in Nationwide Arena in which the Blue Jackets scored enough to win but gave up enough to lose.  

“We’re scoring four goals, we should be winning games,” Bowness said. “You give up five (each) in the back-to-back, that’s really disappointing. That’s not who we are.” 

The silver lining, though, was that the Blue Jackets did battle back in each contest to get points, giving the team at least one in 17 of the last 19 games (14-2-3). Monday’s result left Columbus two points behind Boston for the final wild card spot with 19 games to go, while the Blue Jackets trail the Islanders by three for third place in the Metropolitan Division with a game in hand. 

As frustrating as it was to not finish the last two games, it would have been a lot worse if the Blue Jackets had left either of those contests empty-handed.  

“We competed hard,” said forward Conor Garland, who tallied twice in his second game with the team Monday since being acquired since the trade deadline. “We fought back two games in a row, so we would have loved to earn the extra point both nights, but we had a lot of fight in here. You want to win hockey games. They’re important this time of year, but to fight and get a point, hopefully it pays off toward the end. But you have to start winning games.” 

The challenge doesn’t get any easier tonight, and not just because the Blue Jackets had to board a plane after Monday afternoon’s game to head to Florida. Tampa Bay enters the contest in the mix for the top seed in the Eastern Conference having won 21 of its last 28 games, and the Lightning have scored at least four goals in 21 of those contests as well. 

In other words, the Blue Jackets are going to have to find their defensive game quickly to have a chance to slow down the Bolts tonight.  

“I think there were some plays that we’d like back,” defenseman Denton Mateychuk said of Monday’s game. “I think we still battled hard, and to come out of it with a point, it’s all right. It’s not the result we wanted. You have to move on. We play again tomorrow night, so just flip the page and get ready for tomorrow night.”

Scratches: Danton Heinen, Dmitri Voronkov, Erik Gudbranson (upper body injury), Egor Zamula  

Injured Reserve: D Brendan Smith (knee surgery, out three to four months as of Jan. 8)      

Roster Report: The Blue Jackets won’t have a morning skate so any updates to the lineup will come pregame, while Merzlikins likely gets the net in the second half of the back-to-back. Gudbranson left Monday’s game in the first period and will not travel, Bowness said, so either Christiansen or Zamula will enter the lineup.   

This Day in CBJ History  

March 10, 2010: Steve Mason makes 35 saves in a 2-0 win vs. Boston at Nationwide Arena, giving the CBJ rookie his ninth shutout of the campaign. Raffi Torres scores the winner on the power play in the third period before Rick Nash’s empty-net goal.  

March 10, 2013: Columbus earns its fifth win in a row and second in as many days vs. Detroit, capturing a 3-2 shootout victory at Joe Louis Arena. Matt Calvert gets the deciding goal in the skills competition, while Derick Brassard and R.J. Umberger tally in regulation. 

March 10, 2017: Defenseman Zach Werenski notches the 40th point of his rookie season, breaking Rick Nash’s team record for a first-year player, in a 4-3 win vs. Buffalo. 

The Numbers Game   

Zach Werenski is the only NHL defenseman with at least 20 goals (20) and 60 points (66) on the season, tying for second among league blueliners in goals and points. Werenski has points in 23 of his last 26 games (11-25-36) as well as 34 of the last 40 (16-39-55). He leads NHL defensemen in multipoint games (21, tied for 10th overall in NHL). … Kirill Marchenko has a five-game point streak (3-5-8) as well as points in 10 of the last 11 games (5-9-14). He is one goal from 100 in his NHL career and three assists from 100 as well. ... Charlie Coyle has 10 goals and 25 points in the past 19 games as well as a 6-14-20 line in the last 13 contests, ranking him seventh in the NHL in points in that span. He has a six-game point streak. ... Conor Garland scored two goals Monday vs. Los Angeles, making him just the third CBJ player to have a multigoal performance within his first two games with the club (Mason Marchment, 2025; Grant Marshall, 2001). … Adam Fantilli has goals in five of the last seven games and posted a 6-8-14 line in the last 13 games. ... Mathieu Olivier has eight goals and 11 points in the last 12 games. ... Damon Severson has a goal and four assists in the last five games. ... Denton Mateychuk notched his 10th goal of the year Monday, making him just the seventh CBJ blueliner to reach double digits in a season and the third age 21 or younger (Werenski, Adam Boqvist). … Blue Jackets defensemen have scored 47 goals this season, the most in the NHL, and Columbus is one of four teams to have two defensemen score at least 10 goals this season joining Buffalo, Washington and Montreal. … Columbus has scored the first goal in 24 of the last 32 contests and is tied for the league by scoring first in 39 of 63 games overall. ... The Blue Jackets are 5-1 in shootouts this year. ... Miles Wood and Danton Heinen are each one goal away from 100 in their NHL careers. ... Boone Jenner has 204 career assists, tied with David Vyborny for third most in team history. 

Know The Foe: Tampa Bay Lightning   

Head coach: John Cooper (14th season)    

Team stats: Goals per game: 3.53 (4th) | Scoring defense: 2.74 (3rd) | PP: 22.2 percent (13thth) | PK: 82.0 percent (T-6th)     

The narrative: The Lightning has remained one of the elite teams in the league, making the playoffs eight consecutive seasons and 11 of the last 12, but last year marked the third straight first-round exit for the 2020 and ‘21 Stanley Cup champs. Many of the squad’s stalwarts are getting a bit long in the tooth – Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilevskiy have all passed 30 – but this year's squad is fifth in the NHL in points percentage and has just been getting better as the season has gone on. 

Scoring leaders: The Lightning’s run as one of the best teams in the NHL has been spurred by elite talent, and nothing has changed this season. Kucherov is third in the league this season with 103 points, not to mention tied for sixth in goals (34) and second in assists (69). Jake Guentzel continues to be one of the NHL’s most consistent scorers with a 27-40-67 line that puts him in the top 20 in the league in points, while Brandon Hagel has 30 goals among 59 points. On the blue line, Darren Raddysh is having an exceptional season with a 17-41-58 line that places him tied for sixth among NHL defensemen in scoring. 

In net: Vasilevskiy finished second in the Vezina Trophy voting a season ago, and he'll likely be a finalist for the sixth time in his career as he’s second in the NHL with 29 wins while posting a 29-10-3 record, 2.28 GAA (second among goalies with at least 20 starts) and .914 save percentage.  

What's new: Tampa Bay hit the accelerator in a two-month stretch from late December to late February, going 20-1-1 over a 22-game stretch while outscoring teams 92-51. The Bolts have five regulation losses in the last six, though, including Sunday night’s 8-7 loss at Buffalo in what might have been the NHL’s game of the year. Tampa brought back Corey Perry at the trade deadline and finally has most of its big guns healthy, and this will be one of the toughest teams to beat in the East. Since Dec. 20, Kucherov leads the NHL with a 21-40-61 line in 28 games, 11 points more than second-place Connor McDavid in that span. 

Trending: Columbus had gone just 5-18-4 in the series from 2018-19 to last year, but the Blue Jackets have won both games this season in Nationwide Arena. The last was a wild 8-5 affair on Jan. 24 that marked Tampa Bay’s only regulation loss from Dec. 18-Feb. 26. 

Former CBJ: Oliver Bjorkstrand has landed in Tampa Bay after a deadline deal a season ago, and the now 30-year-old wing has 11 goals among 29 points this season.