{"id":455743,"date":"2026-02-12T16:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/455743\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:09:14","slug":"blue-jackets-elvis-merzlikins-facing-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/455743\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jackets&#8217; Elvis Merzlikins: Facing Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nhl\/teams\/CLB\/columbus-blue-jackets\/\" aria-label=\"home team page\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"TeamLogo-image\" alt=\"team logo\" src=\"https:\/\/sports.cbsimg.net\/fly\/images\/team-logos\/399.svg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                                                <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nhl\/players\/3107125\/merzlikins\/fantasy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Merzlikins<\/a> will defend the Latvian crease against the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Thursday, according to Jeff Svoboda of the <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nhl\/teams\/CLB\/columbus-blue-jackets\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Blue Jackets<\/a>&#8216; official site.<\/p>\n<p>Merzlikins won his last three starts in a Columbus uniform, prior to the Olympic break, turning aside 70 of 75 shots. He is 11-8-1 with a 3.48 GAA and an .888 save percentage over 21 contests this season. Merzlikins has a tough matchup against the mighty American team, which includes Blue Jackets teammate, Zach Werenski.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merzlikins will defend the Latvian crease against the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Thursday, according&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,7819,276,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-455743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-elvis-merzlikins","14":"tag-fantasy-hockey","15":"tag-hockey","16":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116058532846968412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}