Blue Jackets at Red Wings preview

BLUE JACKETS (0-0-0) at RED WINGS (0-0-0)
7:30 p.m. ET; FS-D, FS-O, NHL.TV

The Game

Backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo will start when the Columbus Blue Jackets open the regular season against the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday.
Korpisalo was 8-8-1 with a 3.32 goals-against average and .897 save percentage in 18 games (17 starts) last season. Sergei Bobrovsky, who has started the past six season openers for Columbus, will play in the home opener against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday.
Detroit expected to have a young roster this season, but injuries have made it even younger. Five Red Wings each will make his NHL debut against the Blue Jackets, and defenseman Joe Hicketts will be playing his sixth NHL game.
Injuries to Niklas Kronwall, Mike Green and Jonathan Ericsson mean defensemen Libor Sulak, Dennis Cholowski and
Filip Hronek
each will make his NHL debut. Forwards Michael Rasmussen and Christoffer Ehn each also will be playing his first NHL game.

Players to watch

Forward Artemi Panarin is coming off a season when he led the Blue Jackets with 82 points (27 goals, 55 assists) in 81 games.
Dylan Larkin will center the first line for the Red Wings after Henrik Zetterberg's career-ending back injury. Larkin led the Red Wings with 63 points (16 goals, 47 assists) in 82 games last season.

They said it

"People are reading way too much into this. We're opening with back-to-back games, so both guys were going to play once. We decided to have (Korpisalo) start the road game." -- Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella
"We have four rookie defensemen, but they can all play. The biggest thing I can do is try to make them as comfortable as possible out there." ­ -- Red Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser

Blue Jackets projected lineup

Artemi Panarin -- Pierre-Luc Dubois -- Cam Atkinson
Nick Foligno -- Alex Wennberg -- Oliver Bjorkstrand
Boone Jenner -- Brandon Dubinsky -- Josh Anderson
Sonny Milano - Riley Nash -- Anthony Duclair
Zach Werenski -- David Savard
Ryan Murray -- Markus Nutivaara
Dean Kukan -- Gabriel Carlsson
Joonas Korpisalo
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: Markus Hannikainen, Lukas Sedlak, Adam Clendening
Injured: Scott Harrington (upper body), Seth Jones (knee)

Red Wings projected lineup

Gustav Nyquist -- Dylan Larkin -- Anthony Mantha
Michael Rasmussen -- Frans Nielsen -- Tyler Bertuzzi
Thomas Vanek -- Andreas Athanasiou -- Justin Abdelkader
Darren Helm -- Luke Glendening -- Christoffer Ehn
Danny DeKeyser -- Dennis Cholowski
Libor Sulak -- Trevor Daley
Filip Hronek -- Joe Hicketts
Jimmy Howard
Jonathan Bernier
Scratched:Luke Witkowski, Martin Frk, Nick Jensen
Injured:Niklas Kronwall (knee), Jonathan Ericsson (upper body), Mike Green (illness), Evgeny Svechnikov (undisclosed)

Status report

Murray, who missed most of the preseason with a groin injury, will play the point on the second power-play unit and kill penalties. … Hicketts and Hronek played together in the American Hockey League, so Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill made them his all-rookie pair.

Stat pack

Detroit has won its past five home openers and eight of the past nine. … Columbus is 16-3-2 in its past 21 games against Detroit, including 6-0-0 in the last two seasons.