After four days off the Columbus Blue Jackets prepare to take the ice for the front end of a home and home against the Metro Division leading Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins of course are the popular pick to win the Division this year and boast two of the consensus top-five players in the game today in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Columbus should have their hands full.
Sergei Bobrovsky will get the nod in net tonight and coach Todd Richards has said he may well get the call tomorrow in Columbus as well. After tomorrow's contest at Nationwide, the Jackets will be off again until Tuesday when they are scheduled to host Ottawa. It's probably a good idea to give Bob both starts against one of the league's most prolific offenses.
The game represents a bit of a homecoming for winger RJ Umberger, who was born in Pittsburgh and was a high school star in the area.
Boone Jenner is again out of the lineup and isn't expected back for another 10 days or so. Derek MacKenzie is a game-time decision. If he can go here are the projected lines per Rob Mixer of bluejackets.com.
Foligno-Anisimov-Gaborik Letestu-Dubinsky-Atkinson Comeau-Johansen-Umberger Chaput-MacKenzie-Boll
On defense the pairs are expected to be:
Tyutin-Prout Murray-Wisniewski Johnson-Savard
The Penguins are led by the trio of Crosby, Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis who have combined for 16 goals and 44 points through 13 games. Kunitz in particular has begun to garner some serious attention and is a dark horse candidate to make Team Canada due in large part to the tremendous chemistry he shares with Sid.
Marc-Andre Fleury will get the start between the pipes for Pittsburgh. His understudy, Jeff Zatkoff is in line to go tomorrow night. Fleury, who has endured a couple of lackluster postseason performances that has led to some speculation regarding his long term future in Pittsburgh, is off to a tremendous start with a GAA of 1.81 and a Save % of 92.7%.
The reality is that Columbus can't match the talent in Pittsburgh's lineup so the Jackets must outwork the Penguins and play a smart game with and without the puck. The one thing they absolutely must avoid is turning the puck over. Pittsburgh can quickly convert a turnover into a goal so the Jackets need to protect the puck.
This will prove to be a big test for Columbus. Pittsburgh is the reigning big boy in the Metro and if the Jackets can pull out three of four points this weekend it will be considered quite the accomplishment. Also, given the geographic proximity, Pittsburgh has the potential to grow into Columbus' biggest rival. But as we know rivalries are born from bitter and tightly contested hockey games, usually of the playoff variety, and not from geographic proximity. For a true rivalry to foster Columbus needs to land a couple of body blows in their match-ups with the Penguins and their first chance comes tonight.