Columbus Blue Jackets’ head coach Rick Bowness promised there would be sweeping changes to the forward lines in advance of Tuesday night’s game in Detroit. He was not kidding.
All four forward lines have been changed. At least they will be this way to start the game. Whether it stays that way or not will depend on how things go.
Miles Wood was the only expected skater to miss the morning skate in Detroit. Word is he has been under the weather.
Head coach Rick Bowness said there would be a few gametime decisions although he didn’t specify who fell into that category. The one thing he did say was that Jet Greaves would be the starting goalie Tuesday night.
New Look Lines
Here is how the Blue Jackets skated at their morning skate in Detroit.
- Cole Sillinger-Adam Fantilli-Kent Johnson
- Kirill Marchenko-Charlie Coyle-Conor Garland
- Mason Marchment-Boone Jenner-Danton Heinen
- Luca Del Bel Belluz-Sean Monahan-Isac Lundestrom
- Zach Aston-Reese rotated on the fourth line. Wood was missing.
- Zach Werenski-Dante Fabbro
- Ivan Provorov-Denton Mateychuk
- Jake Christiansen-Erik Gudbranson
- Extra: Egor Zamula
- Jet Greaves/Elvis Merzlikins
Johnson goes from being a healthy scratch right up to the first line on his off wing. Marchenko goes to his off wing on the second line while Coyle comes into the top-six.
Marchment slides to the third line after spending a considerable amount of time on the top line. Monahan centers the fourth line.
When you have a team in the Blue Jackets that hasn’t gotten a single goal from a forward in 137:53 of gametime, changes have to be considered. That’s especially true with just five games left in the regular season.
A win Tuesday night by the Blue Jackets coupled with a Flyers regulation loss to the Devils would result in the Blue Jackets jumping to third in the Metro due to owning the tiebreaker. In order to make that happen, the team needs offense. Scoring 13 goals in their last eight games simply isn’t going to cut it.
“We haven’t been scoring,” Bowness said of changing the lines. “A lot of the lack of scoring is because we have not been putting nearly enough pucks on the net that we’ve gotten away from. So let’s start with that philosophy of if you’re getting more pucks to the net and see where it goes. If it doesn’t look good, then we switch it back. If you’re not scoring, you got to try something different.”
Bowness explained what he was thinking coming up with these particular combinations, assuming the lineup is like how the morning skate went.
“You’ve got offense on each line and you’ve got reliable people on each line. Again, we’re going on the road here for three. We don’t have last change so let’s make sure every line has a very defensively responsible person. Every line can score.”
“Listen, we don’t have a forward in the top-60 in scoring. So we score by committee and balance it out as best we can. You look at the last two games. I know we’ve got the highest scoring D in the league but they’ve got the last two goals. When I say we got scoring by committee, we need every line to chip in somehow. It goes back to putting more pucks at the net, getting a little hungrier around the net, like all those things that I’m talking about, being nasty around the net, getting greasy goals. This time of year man, that’s how you score.”
For Jenner, he knows the team hasn’t created enough of late. They need to get back to playing as a team the way they know they can.
“It’s well balanced,” Jenner said of the new lines. “We’re looking forward to trying to get some chemistry going. I think the last couple games, we haven’t created enough 5-on-5 and trying to make it tougher on teams just wearing them down and getting some more pucks to the net and with those secondary chances. We’re excited no matter who we’re playing with. We got to play as a team and I think we’re excited for that.”
