This article will be part two in series of posts looking at how the New York Islanders stack up against each Metropolitan Division team next season (done in no particular order). Today’s look: how the Islanders measure against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
OFFENSE
Losing all three of Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel and Artemi Panarin is a tough but expected pill for the Blue Jackets to have to swallow. As a result, their offense is going to be a step down from last year and Cam Atkinson and Pierre-Luc Dubois are going to be relied on more than he necessarily should be. The Blue Jackets did sign Gustav Nyquist but after those three, there’s a huge lack of depth offensively. You have to expect both Atkinson and Dubois see a drop in offensive production as well with the loss of Panarin. While the Islanders lack offense as well, they didn’t just lose three of their top eight forwards in TOI/GP. Mathew Barzal, Josh Bailey, Jordan Eberle, Anders Lee and Brock Nelson make up a better group than Atkinson, Dubois, Nyquist, Anderson, Foligno and Jenner.
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DEFENSE
Despite some of their losses, Columbus still has two of the best young defensemen in the league. Seth Jones and Zach Werenski are a force on the Blue Jackets’ blue line and Ryan Murray is coming off a breakout year offensively. Between Columbus’ three big defensemen they edge out Ryan Pulock, Devon Toews and Nick Leddy. After that, Markus Nutivaara and Scott Harrington provide some decent defensive depth, comparable to how the Islanders have Adam Pelech and Scott Mayfield.
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GOALTENDING
The questions surrounding how Semyon Varlamov will handle the Islanders starting job don’t compare to the questions surrounding how Joonas Korpisalo will be able to take over for Sergei Bobrovsky. Korpisalo started just 21 games last year while playing behind Bobrovsky, posting just an .897 save percentage. Should Varlamov struggle, the Islanders still have Thomas Greiss as a backup while The Blue Jackets have Elvis Merzlikins who, despite being an exciting prospect, has never played an NHL game.
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The Blue Jackets may still have Jones and Werenski but the losses in free agency are likely going to be too much to overcome. With goaltending as a major question mark in Columbus as well, the Islanders head into 2019-20 as the better team on paper.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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