Blues at Blue Jackets preview

BLUES (22-22-5) at BLUE JACKETS (28-19-3)
7 p.m. ET; FS-O, FS-MW, NHL.TV

The forward, who leads the Blue Jackets with 28 goals, did not play in a 4-3 loss at the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday after he was hit in the mouth by a puck during warmups.
Columbus, outscored 15-9 in four straight losses, looks to avoid its longest losing streak since it lost five consecutive games from Jan. 30-Feb. 9, 2018.
Rookie goalie Jordan Binnington is expected to start for the Blues, who are 5-2-1 in their past eight games and have allowed two goals or fewer in six of them. Binnington is 5-1-1 with a 1.57 goals-against average, .936 save percentage and one shutout in his first seven NHL starts.

Players to watch

Blues center Ryan O'Reilly has eight points (two goals, six assists) in a six-game point streak and is one assist shy of 300 in the NHL.
Blue Jackets forward Artemi Panarin has 23 points (11 goals, 12 assists) in his past 16 games.

They said it

"It's a tough thing coming off a break. We know we're going to have to find our game as early as possible. It's a big challenge. We have to have an exceptional game tonight." -- Blues center Ryan O'Reilly on St. Louis playing its first game since a League-mandated five-day break following the 2019 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend
"Wherever [Anderson] plays he's going to add speed, add chase to puck, forechecking. He's a guy you can move up and down the lineup in a lot of different roles." -- Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella on forward Josh Anderson replacing forward Cam Atkinson on the top line

Blues projected lineup

Brayden Schenn -- Ryan O'Reilly -- Vladimir Tarasenko
Jaden Schwartz -- Tyler Bozak -- Alexander Steen
Zach Sanford -- Oskar Sundqvist -- Pat Maroon
Mackenzie MacEachern -- Ivan Barbashev -- Robert Thomas
Carl Gunnarsson -- Alex Pietrangelo
Jay Bouwmeester -- Colton Parayko
Joel Edmundson -- Vince Dunn
Jordan Binnington
Jake Allen
Scratched: Robby Fabbri, Robert Bortuzzo, Sammy Blais
Injured: David Perron (upper body)

Blue Jackets projected lineup

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

Status report

Thomas returns after missing seven games with a shoulder injury. … Dubinsky (undisclosed) and Murray (undisclosed) each will be a game-time decision. … Duclair remains in the lineup after playing one shift of 24 seconds at Winnipeg after he was benched for committing a turnover that led to the Jets first goal.

Stat pack

Tarasenko has eight points (five goals, three assists) in his past eight games. … Dubois has 13 points (four goals, nine assists) in his past 12 games. … Atkinson has eight points (four goals, four assists) in his past seven games.