Coming off consecutive home shutouts, the Columbus Blue Jackets are looking for a spark to get their offense going. On Monday night against the New Jersey Devils, they have decided to make a major change.
The Blue Jackets will show a different-looking top-six. In the process, we will see an old line reunited.
New Look Top-6
While the bottom-six will remain in tact from Saturday’s game against the New York Rangers, the top-six will be revamped. The all-Russian line of Yegor Chinakhov, Dmitri Voronkov and Kirill Marchenko will play together on one line.
Then on the other line, it will be Adam Fantilli centering Boone Jenner and Kent Johnson. For head coach Dean Evason, they had to try something to get this offense going during their most important stretch of the season.
“When you don’t have success, you gotta tweak some things,” Evason said. “And so we’re moving some pieces around.”
Those new look lines were used at the end of the game Saturday. Evason admitted liking what he saw.
“We went to it. Those two lines in particular went to it at the end of the game. We liked what we saw. We obviously had a little sample of it. Did we have success right away with it? No. You always try to find a wake-up call. Not that we’ve played poorly but we haven’t played like we can play. And we’ve gotta get back to that. There’s different ways to try to do that as a coaching staff and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
While the personnel itself won’t change from Saturday in terms of the skaters, there is one change to the lineup. Goaltender Jet Greaves will get the start on Monday with Daniil Tarasov backing up.
The defense pairs will remain the same as Saturday. This means another game for Jack Johnson paired with Damon Severson on the third pair. The top-four will remain together for now.
As for the injured, Erik Gudbranson got another skate in. It’s only a matter of days until we see him back. In addition, Jake Christiansen joined the morning skate as he’s working his way back from an upper-body injury. So did Cole Sillinger. Sean Monahan did not join the main group on Monday.
Werenski & Jenner Remain Confident
Although the results haven’t been there of late, the Blue Jackets remain confident that the goals will eventually come. A win on Monday would put the Blue…
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