Columbus Blue Jackets at Carolina Hurricanes
Columbus had their winning streak snapped like Anaheim did not that long ago; an inferior team came to town, they massively outplayed them, and lost anyway. Those games happen and there shouldn’t be much read into it other than it probably signals the end of this hot streak from goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (it was his first official blow-up since returning from injury). It did make five straight games that the team had at least 34 shots on goal so despite just the two goals in the last game; this is a team that is still very potent on offense.
Carolina is going streaking, having won three games in a row, put up 32+ shots on goal in five straight games and 18 goals scored in those five games. The health of their forwards has enabled their coaches to balance three scoring lines and that’s not easy for a team to matchup against. The team’s problem remains their special teams, as their penalty kill has been outscored (6) relative to their power play output (5) since the start of 2014. As good as this team is lately, Columbus has seven power play goals in their last six games so Carolina would do well to stay out of the box.
These two teams have faced off twice in the last five weeks with Columbus taking both games. However, both teams are playing some pretty good hockey right now so I would anticipate this game to be more like the last game these two played in Carolina (4-3 for Columbus) than the last game in Columbus (3-0 for the Jackets). Expect the Dubinsky line against the Eric Staal line at even strength, so I will look to the other lines for my skaters.
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Top RW Value |
Top LW Value |
Top C Value |
Top D Value |
Bargain Bin |
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(CAR) $9711 |
Matt Calvert $7884 |
(CAR) $5437 |
(CAR) |
(CBJ) $3454 |
