The Columbus Blue Jackets conclude their midday back to back weekend games with travel with their second and final meeting of the season against the Minnesota Wild in four days at the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul.
What mouthful. Let's break this down.
Columbus and Minnesota first played each other this season just this past this Thursday inside Nationwide Arena. They now play each other this afternoon. It's a crazy quick turnaround for teams to know each other after just playing.
Columbus also just had their annual kids game yesterday afternoon against the Edmonton Oilers. Afterwards, they had the fly to Minnesota for todays gameday action.
Minnesota last played Friday night suffering an overtime loss to former teammate Ryan O'Reilly in overtime.
Since the clubs last met, Minnesota also facilitated another three team trade by retaining 25% of the salary of defenseman Dmitry Orlov, who was flipped from Washington to Boston. The Wild gave up an unsigned KHL forward as well and received a fifth round pick for helping out.
As Minnesota barely holds onto the second and final wild card spot in the playoff west, they're looking to sweep the season series against the Jackets.
Expect the same lineups as Thursday when the teams last met, except for Filip Gustavsson to be in the net against Joonas Korpisalo
Projected Lineups
Minnesota Wild
Projected Lineups
Kirill Kaprizov--Ryan Hartman--Mats Zuccarello Adam Beckman--Joel Eriksson Ek--Matthew Boldy Jordan Greenway--Frederik Gaudreau--Brandon Duhame Mason Shaw--Connor Dewar--Ryan Reaves
Jacob Middleton--Jared Spurgeon Jonas Brodin--Matthew Dumba Jon Merrill--Alex Gologski
Marc-Andre Fleury Filip Gustavsson
Scratched -- Callen Addison, Sam Steel Injured -- Marcus Foligno
Columbus Blue Jackets
Johnny Gaudreau--Boone Jenner--Patrik Laine Kent Johnson--Cole Sillinger--Kirill Marchenko Liam Foudy--Jack Roslovic--Emil Bemstrom Eric Robinson--Sean Kuraly--Mathieu Olivier
Tim Breni--Erik Gudbranson Gavin Bayreuther--Adam Boqvist Nick Blankenburg--Andrew Peeke
Joonas Korpisalo Elvis Merzlikins
Scratched -- Vladislav Gavrikov, Lane Pederson Injured -- Johnny Gaudreau, Zach Werenski, Jakub Voracek, Jake Bean, Gustav Nyquist, Yegor Chinakov, Carson Meyer
Players to Watch
Minnesota -- Matthew Dumba -- top four right handed shot defenseman that could be moved by the March 3 deadline
Columbus -- Jack Roslovic-- quiet season as a whole, has to get more points up
Predicted Final Score
MIN - 2 CBJ - 1