Scratches:\u00a0Zach Aston-Reese, Luca Del Bel Belluz, Mathieu Olivier (upper body injury),\u00a0Dmitri Voronkov (upper body injury),\u00a0Damon Severson (shoulder surgery, out for season), Egor\u00a0Zamula\u00a0<\/p>\n
Injured Reserve: D Brendan Smith (knee surgery, out three to four months as of Jan. 8)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roster Report:\u00a0The Blue Jackets\u00a0won’t\u00a0have a morning skate with the back-to-back, so\u00a0we’ll\u00a0find out pregame\u00a0if there are any lineup changes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This Day in CBJ History\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
April 12, 2002: Jaroslav Spacek scores the fifth overtime goal in franchise history just 29 seconds into the extra frame to push the Blue Jackets to a 5-4 win over Atlanta at Nationwide Arena\u00a0in the Jackets\u2019 season finale.\u00a0Trashers\u00a0forward\u00a0Tony\u00a0Hrkac\u00a0notches\u00a0the first-ever penalty shot goal against the CBJ in regulation during the third period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
April 12, 2018: Artemi Panarin\u00a0scores\u00a0at 6:02 of\u00a0overtime to give Columbus a 4-3 win and a 1-0 lead in its opening-round playoff series against Washington. Seth Jones\u2019 power-play goal with 4:26 left pushes the game to OT, while Alexander Wennberg and Thomas Vanek\u00a0score\u00a0to help the Jackets overturn an early 2-0 deficit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
April 12, 2019: Columbus pushes its opening-round series lead to 2-0 on Presidents\u2019 Trophy winners Tampa Bay, never trailing on the way to a 5-1 victory over the Lightning in Game 2. Matt Duchene\u00a0has\u00a0a four-point night (1-3-4) while Panarin, Cam Atkinson, Zach Werenski and Riley Nash also\u00a0score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
April 12, 2025: Jet Greaves posts his first career shutout with 22 saves and Columbus romps to a 7-0 victory vs. Washington at Nationwide Arena. Columbus leads 3-0 after the first and 6-0 after the second, with Adam Fantilli scoring a pair of goals. In the third period, Dmitri Voronkov humorously is called\u00a0for a penalty for playing after receiving a misconduct penalty.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Numbers Game\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zach Werenski\u00a0has\u00a0moved into\u00a0fourth\u00a0place in CBJ single-season annals with\u00a081\u00a0points\u00a0this year. With 22\u00a0goals and\u00a059\u00a0assists \u2013\u00a0tied for\u00a0the franchise record \u2013 he is\u00a0tied for\u00a0third\u00a0among NHL defensemen in goals and\u00a0second\u00a0in points.\u00a0He is just the third American-born defensemen to have consecutive 80-point seasons, joining Hall of Famers Brian Leetch and Phil Housley, and just the second active\u00a0NHL\u00a0blueliner\u00a0(Cale Makar) to reach 80 points in back-to-back years.\u00a0He leads NHL defensemen\u00a0with\u00a0a\u00a0CBJ-record\u00a026\u00a0multipoint\u00a0games.\u00a0…\u00a0With 13 goals,\u00a0Denton Mateychuk\u00a0is\u00a0sixth all-time among CBJ defensemen in a single season. He is just the third CBJ D to reach that mark (Werenski, four times; Seth Jones, once). …\u00a0Adam\u00a0Fantilli\u00a0has\u00a0posted an 11-17-28\u00a0line in the last\u00a030\u00a0contests. He has set a new career high in points with 58.\u00a0…\u00a0Kirill Marchenko\u00a0is\u00a0second in\u00a0the NHL with six shootout goals and\u00a0has\u00a0eight\u00a0points in the last\u00a0seven\u00a0games (2-6-8).\u00a0He is the fifth CBJ player with consecutive 25-goal seasons.\u00a0…\u00a0Charlie Coyle\u00a0has\u00a014\u00a0goals and\u00a033\u00a0points in the past\u00a036\u00a0games, while Mason\u00a0Marchment\u00a0has\u00a0seven\u00a0points in his last\u00a0six\u00a0contests (1-6-7). …\u00a0Jet Greaves is\u00a014-5-3\u00a0in his last\u00a023\u00a0appearances with a 2.42\u00a0GAA,\u00a0as well as\u00a0a\u00a0.913\u00a0save percentage in his last\u00a012\u00a0games.\u00a0…\u00a0Blue\u00a0Jackets defensemen have scored\u00a058\u00a0goals this season, the most in the NHL\u00a0and a new franchise\u00a0record. \u2026\u00a0Columbus\u00a0has scored\u00a0first in 48\u00a0of\u00a080\u00a0games overall,\u00a0tied for\u00a0second behind\u00a0Washington\u00a0for the most in the NHL. … Jenner\u00a0has\u00a0211\u00a0career goals,\u00a0two\u00a0behind Cam Atkinson for second in team history.\u00a0… Coyle (fourth, 409) and Provorov\u00a0(seventh,\u00a0373) are both in the top 10 among active NHLers in consecutive games played. Provorov is set to play in his\u00a0245th\u00a0consecutive game with the Blue Jackets,\u00a0second\u00a0in franchise history.\u00a0…\u00a0Miles Wood\u00a0is\u00a0one goal from 100 and\u00a0four\u00a0points from 200 in his NHL career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Know The Foe: Boston Bruins\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Head coach: Marco Sturm (First season)<\/p>\n
Team stats: Goals per game:\u00a03.26\u00a0(12th) | Scoring defense: 3.06\u00a0(17th) | PP: 23.4\u00a0percent (9th) | PK: 76.6\u00a0percent (25th)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The narrative: Boston had made eight straight playoff appearances and qualified 15 of 17 seasons before falling to a last-place finish in the Atlantic Division a year ago. It seemed like saying goodbye to such legendary Bruins as Tuukka Rask, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Brad Marchand over the\u00a0previous\u00a0few years meant Boston would be entering a rebuilding cycle, but\u00a0the Bruins have found their game\u00a0in the second half of\u00a0the\u00a0season\u00a0and\u00a0clinched a playoff spot yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scoring leaders: Some of those familiar names are gone, but it helps the Bruins still have David\u00a0Pastrnak, and the Czech star leads the team and is\u00a0tied for fifth in the NHL with\u00a099\u00a0points, including 29\u00a0goals and\u00a070\u00a0assists. The emergence of Morgan Geekie at age 27 into one of the league\u2019s top goal scorers has been a big reason\u00a0for\u00a0the team\u2019s success, as his 38\u00a0tallies\u00a0tie\u00a0him for\u00a013th\u00a0in the league.\u00a0Pavel Zacha has been on a tear with\u00a0seven goals and 13 points in the\u00a0last\u00a0nine games, giving him\u00a030\u00a0goals and 34\u00a0assists on the year, while gold medalist Charlie McAvoy leads the defense with an 11-50-61\u00a0line.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In net: The Bruins sent both goalies to the Olympics in U.S. gold-medal winner Jeremy\u00a0Swayman\u00a0and former Blue Jacket Joonas\u00a0Korpisalo, a bronze medalist with Finland.\u00a0Swayman\u00a0is\u00a030-18-4\u00a0to tie for fourth\u00a0in the NHL in wins while posting a 2.76\u00a0GAA and .906\u00a0save percentage, while\u00a0Korpisalo\u00a0is 13-9-6\u00a0with a 3.19\u00a0GAA and .892\u00a0save percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What’s\u00a0new:\u00a0After a red-hot January that included\u00a0an 11-2-1 record, the Bruins have solidified their playoff spot down the stretch by winning six of seven to close March, but Boston has since lost five straight games. The Bruins have scored exactly one goal in four of those five contests,\u00a0and the penalty kill has struggled of late, as Boston has killed just 68.6 percent of opposing power plays over the last 12 games.\u00a0Pastrnak\u00a0has been red hot, notching points in 16 of the last 19\u00a0with a 7-20-17 line.\u00a0With Boston having clinched a playoff spot, Sunday could mark the NHL debut of forward James Hagens, the No. 7 overall pick in the 2025 draft who was an All-American this season with Boston College.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trending: Boston\u00a0has won both games this year between the squads, earning a 4-2 victory at home Feb. 26 and rallying to down the Blue Jackets by a 4-3 score in a shootout March 29.\u00a0Columbus went 2-1-0 in the series a year ago\u00a0but has struggled a bit in the series since 2021-22, posting a 3-7-4\u00a0record.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former CBJ:\u00a0Korpisalo\u00a0is just one of four former Columbus players in The Hub, as center Sean\u00a0Kuraly\u00a0(5-12-17) and defenseman Andrew Peeke (5-9-14) are regulars with the squad and blueliner Jordan Harris has played just\u00a0seven\u00a0games while dealing with injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scratches:\u00a0Zach Aston-Reese, Luca Del Bel Belluz, Mathieu Olivier (upper body injury),\u00a0Dmitri Voronkov (upper body injury),\u00a0Damon Severson (shoulder surgery,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-550941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-bostonbruins","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116390520666427109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550941","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=550941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}