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The playoff matchups in the Eastern Conference are set. The Pittsburgh Penguins will be facing the Columbus Blue Jackets.
During the regular season this year the Penguins were 5-0 against the Blue Jackets, it doesn’t mean anything. Last year the Penguins were 3-0 against the Boston Bruins in the regular season and we all know how that played out.
What does matter is the fact the Penguins are going to be the healthiest that they have been all season in round 1 of the playoffs. The Penguins have their full compliment of defensemen available and ready to play. The forwards are all relatively healthy as well. Evgeni Malkin has been skating before Penguins practices and it was believed that the biggest hurdle for Malkin coming back was getting his foot into a skating boot, that has been accomplished. Only Marcel Goc appears to be unavailable for the start of the Blue Jackets series.
This series is great for the city of Columbus. The Blue Jackets have not had a ton of on ice success during their existence which has made it more difficult for fans to jump on board. Couple that with the fact that they were in the Western Conference and all of their road games were at 10PM, you can understand the uphill battle the Columbus market has had.
Starting this year the Blue Jackets were finally afforded admittance into the Eastern Conference. The John Davidson Jarmo Kekaleinen led blue Jackets are also starting to turn the corner with their on ice product. The combination has reinvigorated the interest in their hockey team.
The Penguins are the closest geographical rival for the Blue Jackets and an intense playoff series is just what the doctor ordered for Columbus. Nothing gets the juices flowing quite like a playoff series.
The combination of this playoff series, a team on the rise, and an NHL Allstar game coming to town in the very near future could be what springboards Columbus into one of the stronger hockey markets in the United States. The potential is there, it has just been woefully untapped until now. I predict that there is no looking back, Columbus has arrived as a hockey market. Great news for the NHL.
As far as the series itself, I will be breaking it down in the days to come.
I will leave with this thought though, Jack Johnson is going to have to take on either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, I can’t wait to see the end results of that. Because regardless of people waxing poetically about Johnson (IE Brian Burke), he is a bad player who is always put in situations he cannot handle.
Thanks for reading!
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