Preview: Blue Jackets vs. Stars (Game #20)
Written By: DP | Category: Columbus Blue Jackets | Comments: 2
Columbus Blue Jackets (11-6-2, 24pts)
vs. Dallas Stars (9-5-6, 24pts)
American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX
Thursday, November 19, 2009
8:30 PM EST
FSOhio TV/WWCD(fm)/WBNS(am)
(Dispatch Preview / SportsDirect Preview)
The Jackets bounced back from the 9-1 drubbing at the hands of Detroit by finishing their home stand with two shoot-out wins. In those wins they did not play up to their full potential, but were able to get the win. That’s a main difference between Jackets teams of the past and this year’s team: they have been able to win games when not bringing their best effort because they have more talent and experience. Dallas has always been a proverbial thorn in the side of the Jackets, and this first meeting kicks off a five game road trip for Columbus.
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets:
| LW: | Kristian Huselius | R.J. Umberger | Jason Chimera | Raffi Torres |
| C: | Antoine Vermette | Derick Brassard | Derek MacKenzie | Mike Blunden |
| RW: | Rick Nash | Jakub Voracek | Derek Dorsett | Jared Boll |
| D: | Jan Hejda | Fedor Tyutin | Kris Russell | |
| D: | Rostislav Klesla | Anton Stralman | Mike Commodore | |
| G: | Steve Mason |
Dallas Stars:
| LW: | James Neal | Brenden Morrow | Steve Ott | Krys Barch |
| C: | Brad Richards | Mike Modano | Mike Ribeiro | Tom Wandell |
| RW: | Loui Eriksson | Jamie Benn | Jere Lehtinen | Toby Petersen |
| D: | Nicklas Grossman | Karlis Skrastins | Mark Fistric | |
| D: | Stephane Robidas | Matt Niskanen | Trevor Daley | |
| G: | Marty Turco |
Team Rankings
Scoring:
CBJ – 2.95 gpg (12th NHL)
DAL – 3.05 gpg (7th NHL)
Defense:
CBJ – 3.42 gapg (t27th NHL)
DAL – 2.70 gapg (13th NHL)
Power Play:
CBJ – 23.3% (7th NHL)
DAL – 18.5% (18th NHL)
Penalty Kill:
CBJ – 78.2% (t23rd NHL)
DAL – 81.2% (13th NHL)
Prior Matchups
No prior matchups – Columbus finished 1-1-2 against Dallas last season.
Game Notes
Amidst all of the Nikita Filatov news, the Jackets have to band together on this road trip and continue to play solid hockey. They’ve been better on defense these past two games after a complete collapse against Detroit last week, so it will be imperative to continue that effort tonight.
Back in goal will be Steve Mason, who has had two games off—one for a regularly scheduled start for backup Mathieu Garon, and one due to back spasms on Monday. Mason is claiming to be pain free, so it will be interesting to see if he can bounce back from his eight-goals-allowed performance against Detroit (though, in fairness, the entire team was flat-out bad that night). Also back tonight is Raffi Torres, who’s missed two games due to a cracked upper jaw bone after taking a puck to the face against the Red Wings last week.
Dallas has a solid top line with Jackets-killers James Neal, Brad Richards, and Loui Eriksson. It will be imperative for the Jackets—without top defensive center Sammy Pahlsson—to keep this line in check. These teams have identical point totals, but Dallas has suffered 6 overtime losses already to get a big chunk of their early points.
The Jackets will need to play solid on-man defense, execute their forecheck well, and have a bounce-back game from Mason to prevail tonight.
From The Outside Looking In
Dallas Morning News
Defending Big D
Five For Fighting (no, not the lame band)
The Shootout
Next Game For The Jackets
Saturday, November 21, 2009
9:00 PM EDT
Columbus Blue Jackets at Nashville Predators
Author: DP
DP is a native north-eastern Ohioan who has been living in Columbus since 1999. DP's main area of concentration here at WFNY is the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team, and you can catch his weekly 5-Hole columns each Tuesday. During the summers, you can also catch up on all the Columbus Clippers news that's fit to print in his Clip Show columns. In his spare time, he works in publishing, plays the drums, and wastes hundreds of dollars on Browns season tickets.DP has written 305 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
Good win for the Jackets. The defense was strong throughout most of the game and the PP looked great. Nice to see Mason bounce back, as well. Here’s hoping for 8 more points on this road trip!
Nice that they made the Stars pay with 2 PP goals after that cheap shot on Dorsett. The Jackets Power Play has completely turned itself around this season so far… from dead last to top-6.