Blue Jackets at Oilers preview

BLUE JACKETS (42-29-5) AT OILERS (34-36-6)
9 p.m. ET; SNW, FS-O, NHL.TV

The Blue Jackets, 10-1-0 in their past 11 games, are in third place in the Metropolitan, three points behind the second-place Pittsburgh Penguins, who hold the tiebreaker over Columbus with five more regulation/overtime wins. The Blue Jackets are tied in points with the Philadelphia Flyers, but hold the tiebreaker with more wins (42-38).
The Oilers, 7-2-2 in their past 11 games, were eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention on Thursday.

Players to watch

Blue Jackets forward Artemi Panarin has six points (four goals, two assists) in his past four games and 23 points (10 goals, 13 assists) in his past 18 games.
Oilers center Connor McDavid has 28 points (12 goals, 16 assists) in his past 15 games and leads the NHL in scoring with 99 points (39 goals, 60 assists) in 76 games.

They said it

"It'll be unique for me that I know everybody on the other team. That's another first experience for me, I've never been traded in-season and come back and played that team. But once the game starts, hopefully that kind of stuff goes away and it becomes easy." -- Blue Jackets forward Mark Letestu on playing the Oilers for the first time since being traded from Edmonton on Feb. 25
"We want to finish the season on a high note, we don't want to quit on the season. … We have to find other motivation and at the same time, we're playing for guys like Connor [McDavid] who is in the Art Ross race and that sort of stuff." -- Oilers forward Drake Caggiula

Blue Jackets projected lineup

Artemi Panarin -- Pierre-Luc Dubois -- Cam Atkinson
Boone Jenner -- Alexander Wennberg -- Thomas Vanek
Sonny Milano -- Brandon Dubinsky -- Oliver Bjorkstrand
Markus Hannikainen -- Mark Letestu -- Matt Calvert
Zach Werenski -- Seth Jones
Ian Cole -- David Savard
Ryan Murray -- Markus Nutivaara
Sergei Bobrovsky
Joonas Korpisalo
Scratched: Scott Harrington, Jack Johnson, Taylor Chorney, Dean Kukan, Alex Broadhurst](https://www.nhl.com/player/alex-broadhurst-8476283), Josh Anderson
Injured: Nick Foligno (lower body), Lukas Sedlak (head)

Oilers projected lineup

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins -- Connor McDavid -- Ty Rattie
Drake Caggiula -- Leon Draisaitl -- Pontus Aberg
Milan Lucic -- Ryan Strome -- Jesse Puljujarvi
Anton Slepyshev -- Jujhar Khaira -- Zack Kassian
Darnell Nurse -- Adam Larsson
Kris Russell -- Ethan Bear
Andrej Sekera -- Matt Benning
Cam Talbot
Laurent Brossoit
Scratched: Yohann Auvitu, Iiro PakarinenInjured: Oscar Klefbom (shoulder), Michael Cammalleri (undisclosed), Al Montoya (undisclosed)

Status report

Kassian will return after missing the past five games with an upper-body injury … Cole will play in his 400th NHL game.

Stat pack

Atkinson has five points (three goals, two assists) in a four-game point streak. … Jones has nine points (five goals, four assists) in his past six games … Nugent-Hopkins has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in his past nine games.