{"id":461004,"date":"2026-02-17T17:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/461004\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T17:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:13:14","slug":"blue-jackets-elvis-merzlikins-set-to-face-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/461004\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jackets&#8217; Elvis Merzlikins: Set to face Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"VideoPlayer-backgroundImage\" alt=\"default-cbs-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770878719_537_video-slate.png\"\/><\/p>\n<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 be in goal for Latvia against Sweden on Tuesday in the qualifying round of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Brian Hedger of The Columbus Dispatch reports.<\/p>\n<p>Merzlikins is set to get his first start since the opening game of the tournament, as Arturs Silovs was between the pipes for the Latvians&#8217; last two games of the preliminary round. Merzlikins allowed five goals on 38 shots against the Americans on Thursday in a 5-1 loss. Sweden went 2-0-0-1 and finished third in Group B during round-robin play, picking up wins against Italy and Slovakia. The Swedes&#8217; lone defeat came at the hands of the Finns on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>        More News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merzlikins will be in goal for Latvia against Sweden on Tuesday in the qualifying round of the 2026&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-461004","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\/116087096627351018","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461004","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=461004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461004\/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=461004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}