After the game Saturday the Blue Jackets announced they would be recalling Josh Anderson from his conditioning stint.
Anderson played one game in the AHL and showed no signs of rust putting up a team high seven shots on goal. Anderson had to do some fitness testing over the weekend for John Tortorella, he appears to have passed those, as he will be in the line-up tonight against the Hurricanes.
Anderson will come into the line-up in place of either Zac Dalpe or Markus Hannikainen. These players were both bubble players to begin with and neither has played well to start the season. The Jackets have been a strong possession team to start the season with a 53.77% Corsi though two games, per
Corsica. Hannikainen has been the worst possession player on the team with a 45.45% Corsi and a -9.97% CorsiRel. He has also failed to record a shot and has just two shot attempts at 5 on 5.
Dalpe hasn’t been much better. He has a 50% Corsi, but relative to the team that’s below average. Dalpe has fired three shots on net and had six shot attempts on 5 on 5. The problem with Dalpe has been penalties. In two games he has already taken four penalties and drawn just one. He is one of just four players in the league to have a negative three penalty differential this early in the season.
Penalties are a part of the game but with Dalpe his penalties have all been aggressive retaliatory penalties. He took an unsportsmanlike penalty against the Islanders, going after Cal Clutterbuck for his hit on Lukas Sedlak and against Chicago he took a roughing penalty going after and fighting Lance Bouma for kneeing Sedlak. I’m all for standing up for your teammates but there is a time and place for it, and in my opinion the Bouma fight was a bad idea. The Jackets were down 2-0 early in the game, and couldn’t get anything going. Bouma knees Sedlak and a penalty is called. The Jackets will be getting a power play and a chance to swing some momentum back their way and get into the game. Instead Dalpe goes after Bouma takes a penalty himself and negates the power play.
For those reasons I would take Dalpe out but those are the same reasons why he's likely to stay in the line-up.
Things to watch for against Carolina
1.Speed
The Blue Jackets and Hurricanes are two of the youngest teams in the league. According to
QuantHockey the Blue Jackets are the third youngest team in the league with an average age of 25.742, the Hurricanes are not that much older ranking 10th with an average age of 26.498. With this youth comes speed, Carolina is a very fast team, as too are the Jackets so this game could end up as track meet. Both defence units are going to have to be ready to defend these oncoming rushes.
2.Blue line defence
Carolina with their speed likes to carry the puck into the zone. Their defencemen are extremely good at breaking the puck out and transitioning it up to the forwards. The Jacket blue liners need to be ready to defend these rushes. They can’t afford to be flat footed or they will get blown past for an odd-man rush. Zach Werenski and Seth Jones should be fine as they are two of the better skaters in the league from the back-end, but after that it gets a bit dicey. It’s not that the other defencemen are bad skaters, they just aren’t up to that same Werenski-Jones level, and are going to have be really smart with their positioning against these Carolina forwards.
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