Category: Sports News

The Columbus Blue Jackets are at home tonight to face the Edmonton Oilers at Nationwide Arena.

The Blue Jackets will have one thing on their mind tonight - Revenge. The good news for Columbus is that they have played Edmonton very tough at home in their history, going 18-13-3-1 inside the friendly confines of Nationwide Arena. The other good news is that Edmonton played last night in Philadelphia and had to go to overtime, so hopefully they're nice and worn out. 

The bad news? The Jackets lost their Captain, Boone Jenner, to an upper-body injury against Seattle on Tuesday night, and his status is uncertain. The fact that the PR team announced that he wouldn't return just a few minutes after he left the game is not a good sign. The Cleveland Monsters also called up forward Chongmin Lee from the ECHL's Bloomington Bison on Wednesday night, which means the CBJ might call up an extra forward before tonight's game. 

The Blue Jackets currently sit 8th in the Metro, 14th in the East, and 26th in the league. 

Blue Jackets Stats

• Power Play - 15.0% - 29th in NHL
• Penalty Kill - 72.7% - 27th in NHL
• Goals For - 48 - 20th in NHL
• Goals Against - 51 - 21st in NHL

Oilers Stats

• Power Play - 32.6% - 3rd in NHL
• Penalty Kill - 82.6% - 9th in NHL
• Goals For - 54 - 13th in NHL
• Goals Against - 60 - 26th in NHL

Series History vs. Oilers

• Columbus is 27-37-3-3 all-time, and 18-13-3-1 at home vs. Edmonton.
• The Jackets are 5-2-1 in the last 8 games against the Oilers.
• The CBJ went 1-1 vs. the Oilers last season.

Who To Watch For The Oilers

• Connor McDavid leads the Oilers with 17 assists and 24 points. He also has 36 points in 19 career games vs. Columbus.
• Leon Draisaitl leads Edmonton with 10 goals.
• Calvin Pickard is 5-2-2 with a SV% of .836.

CBJ Player Notes vs. Oilers

• Zach Werenski has 9 points in 13 games against the Oilers.
• Sean Monahan has 28 points in 46 games.
• Adam Fantilli has 5 points in 4 games against Edmonton

Injuries - Gudbranson on IR

• Erik Gudbranson - Upper Body - Missed 8 games - IR

TOTAL MAN GAMES LOST: 20

How to Watch & Listen: Tonight's game will be on ESPN+ & HULU. John Buccigross will be on the play-by-play. The radio broadcast will be on 97.1 The Fan, with Bob McElligott behind the mic doing the play-by-play.

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Nearly a week after breaking down in front of the media following a 4-3 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils, Montreal Canadiens’ netminder Jakub Dobes spoke to the media after practice on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old netminder was all smiles as he explained his reaction to the loss. Turns out that the youngster had lost to them last season and had promised himself that it wouldn’t happen again. The fact that it did, but that it also was in the same fashion in overtime, was the final drop in the bucket, and it pushed him over the edge.

For those who thought there might have been some lasting damage to the goaltender’s mood or confidence, rest assured that it’s already in the past. In fact, he said he was just fine when the team got on the plane back from New Jersey that night and confessed that his teammates had some fun with it at his expense. While he says he has no intention of changing his personality, he does concede that he may get better at handling results as he matures.

After watching Samuel Montembeault play the last two games, Dobes will be back in action on Thursday as the Canadiens will host the Dallas Stars. He took them on once last season and was named the second star of the game in a 3-1 win, posting a .970 save percentage.

The rookie netminder still hasn’t lost in regulation this season and has a 6-0-1 record with a 2.25 goals-against average (second in the league amongst goaltenders who have played at least seven games) and a .920 SV (fourth in the league amongst players who have played in at least seven games). His stats also make him the best rookie goaltender this season, edging Arturs Silovs from the Pittsburgh Penguins, who has a 2.45 GAA and a .916 SV with a 4-2-3 record.

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Almost a quarter of the way through the 2025-26 season, it's becoming clearer that the Philadelphia Flyers are still a far cry from the Stanley Cup-contending team they aspire to be.

Yes, the Flyers are in a playoff spot at the time of this writing, but they're also two points away from being the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference.

Teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Florida Panthers have too much talent to lay dormant forever, though injuries are certainly taking their tolls on those teams.

And, when it comes to tiebreakers, the Flyers are tied with Buffalo for the fewest regulation wins (4) and have the second-fewest regulation and overtime wins (5).

If the team isn't currently thinking about the postseason, they'd be in the right frame of mind.

The Flyers aren't a bad team, necessarily, but they are painstakingly boring and still haven't found a way to consistently generate offense.

In the Rick Tocchet era thus far, the Flyers are dead last in the NHL in shots per game (24.6), tied for the third-fewest goals per game (2.56), and more generally have seen very little improvement from many of their core players.

Franchise player Matvei Michkov is at the heart of those issues, and it's not all his fault.

Porter Martone Doing Everything Flyers Needed to See in NCAAThe Philadelphia Flyers have to be thrilled with how Porter Martone has been developing on the ice and in the gym.

At 5-on-5, Michkov, 20, leads the Flyers in on-ice goals for per 60 minutes (3.15) and on-ice shooting percentage (12.05%) and ranks second in on-ice goals percentage (58.82%) and expected on-ice goals for per 60 (2.63), according to Natural Stat Trick.

The problem, however, is that Michkov is averaging just 11:55 a night at 5-on-5, which ranks ninth on the Flyers behind Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier, Owen Tippett, Noah Cates, Tyson Foerster, Christian Dvorak, Trevor Zegras, and Bobby Brink.

To put all of that information into layman's terms, the Flyers are generating and scoring the most with their Russian talisman on the ice, but he's barely playing third-line minutes.

And to wrap it up, Michkov is sixth in scoring amongst his 2023 draft classmates, while players like Leo Carlsson, Connor Bedard, and Will Smith have all taken off this season with 17 or more points. Michkov, on the other hand, is stuck at nine points and pacing for 47 on the year.

After hot starts, Foerster and Tippett have all but faded into obscurity, too.

The former, returning from an 11-day layoff due to injury, has managed just one goal and one point in his last five contests.

Foerster is on pace for 46 points, narrowly besting his career-high of 43 from last year, despite playing nearly two minutes more on average going from 16:52 a night to 18:24.

If the 23-year-old continues to feature exclusively as a checking-line forward, then he'll only ever be a checking-line forward who doesn't reach his full potential offensively. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As for Tippett, his game has completely stalled out after scoring five times in the first six games of the season. Since then, he has one assist in his last 10 games.

Tocchet admitted recently that Tippett needs to "stay a little bit more focused in the game," but Tippett immediately went offside on what would've been a game-winning Konecny goal with 26 seconds left in a 1-1 game against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night.

Flyers: Are We Headed Towards a Goalie Controversy?The push and pull between Sam Ersson and Aleksei Kolosov may force the Philadelphia Flyers into having an uncomfortable conversation about goaltending.

That goal, of course, didn't stand, and the Flyers lost 2-1 in overtime on an unfortunate and uncharacteristic error from Cam York.

Zegras's point-per-game pace and Konecny's resurgence are things to be happy with, as is Dan Vladar's .919 save percentage.

As for the young players, and the ones who didn't just arrive in Philadelphia this summer? It hasn't been perfect.

York and Jamie Drysdale look improved, but, as mentioned above, York did just lose them a game with a turnover, and Drysdale's game still lacks end product with seven points in 16 games.

Rookie forward Nikita Grebenkin, who has flashed promise and his playmaking chops at various times throughout the nascent season, didn't even play against the Oilers on Wednesday night.

That came at the cost of 6:59 of ice time for Nick Deslauriers, 7:50 of ice time for Garnet Hathaway, and 6:21 of ice time for Rodrigo Abols, who also went 0-for-5 on faceoffs.

Overall, the way the Flyers are developing their current players and the direction of the rebuild overall has clearly taken a downward turn.

Whether that is temporary or not remains to be seen, and the sky isn't falling.

As far as reinvigorating interest and excitement in the Flyers? The progress amongst the fans, at least those with voices on social media, has been inscrutable.

The Florida Panthers are ready to kick off an extended stretch of home games after a very road-heavy opening schedule.

Only seven of Florida’s first 16 games have come at Amerant Bank Arena, but those numbers are going to be skewed in the opposite direction in the not-too-distant future.

That’s because in the coming weeks, the Panthers will play 11 of their next 12 games on home ice.

The fun will start on Thursday night when they welcome the Washington Capitals to Sunrise for the first of their two visits to South Florida.

So far this season, the Capitals, much like the Panthers, are making their way through a so-so start to their campaign.

Both teams hold identical 8-7-1 records through 16 games.

Florida has been great at home but didn’t start playing consistency well on the road until the past week.

After starting the season with three straight home wins, the Cats have meandered around the .500 mark since.

Similarly, the Capitals got off to a great start as well, winning four of their first five and six of eight to jump out to a 6-2-0 mark.

Since then, however, Washington has struggled.

They went through a stretch where they lost six of seven before picking up a big road win on Tuesday in Carolina.

One constant bright spot for the Caps throughout the young season has been the play of goaltender Logan Thompson.

He holds a respectable 7-4-0 record, but his statistics – a 1.56 goals against average and .935 save percentage – are Vezina-worthy.

It wasn’t until his tenth start of the season, last Saturday in Tampa, that Thompson allowed more than two goals in a game.

He’s expected to patrol the crease for the Caps on Thursday, and his likely opponent will be Sergei Bobrovsky.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Thursday’s matchup with Washington:

Carter Verhaeghe – Evan Rodrigues – Sam Reinhart

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand

Jesper Boqvist – Sam Bennett – Mackie Samoskevich

A.J. Greer – Cole Schwindt – Luke Kunin

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones

Dominic Sebrango – Jeff Petry

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Photo caption: May 5, 2022; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin (8) covers Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad (5) during the third period in game two of the first round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at FLA Live Arena. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)