Getting to know the Blue Jackets<\/p>\n
Cole Sillinger – Adam Fantilli – Kirill Marchenko<\/p>\n
Boone Jenner – Sean Monahan – Kent Johnson<\/p>\n
Dmitri Voronkov – Charlie Coyle – Mathieu Olivier<\/p>\n
Danton Heinen – Brendan Gaunce – Mikael Pyyhtia<\/p>\n
Zach Werenski \/ Dante Fabbro<\/p>\n
Ivan Provorov \/ Damon Severson<\/p>\n
Jake Christiansen \/ Erik Gudbranson<\/p>\n
Goalies: Elvis Merzlikins, Jet Greaves<\/p>\n
Potential scratches: Denton Mateychuk (day-to-day), Egor Zamula, Zach Aston-Reese<\/p>\n
Injured Reserve: Brendan Smith, Isac Lundestrom, Miles Wood, Mason Marchment<\/p>\n
Blue Jackets defenseman Denton Mateychuk is day-to-day after taking a hard hit from Brandon Tanev during the Jackets\u2019 Sunday win over the Utah Mammoth. Columbus general manager Don Waddell said<\/a> the team doesn\u2019t expect the injury to be long-term.<\/p>\n Coaching change in Columbus: The Blue Jackets fired former coach Dean Evason last week after one and a half seasons and a 19-19-7 start to the 2025-26 campaign. Evason told The Athletic\u2019s Aaron Portzline<\/a> he was \u201cblindsided\u201d by his dismissal.<\/p>\n The switch allowed the Jackets to bring in Rick Bowness, 70, who had most recently coached the Winnipeg Jets for two seasons from 2022 to 2024. He hasn\u2019t been with the team for very long\u2014 he got the job offer Monday afternoon and joined the team Tuesday morning, per ESPN<\/a>\u2014 but he\u2019s since led the Jackets to wins over the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust<\/p>\n Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin<\/p>\n Anthony Mantha – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari<\/p>\n Brett Kulak \/ Kris Letang<\/p>\n Parker Wotherspoon \/ Jack St. Ivany<\/p>\n Ryan Shea \/ Connor Clifton<\/p>\n Goalies: Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs<\/p>\n Potential Scratches: Ryan Graves, Kevin Hayes<\/p>\n IR: Erik Karlsson, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones, Rutger McGroarty<\/p>\n The Penguins had an off day Friday after Thursday\u2019s 6-3 win over the Flyers.Sidney Crosby has 69 points (24 goals, 45 assists) in 48 career games against the Blue Jackets, which ranked behind only Patrick Kane for the most among any active NHL player. Kris Letang meanwhile leads all NHL defensemen with 14 goals against the Blue Jackets, his highest total against any single team, per Penguins PR.The Penguins are 14-1-4 in their last 19 games against the Blue Jackets, and they\u2019re 16-0-2 in their last 18 games against the Jackets at home, per Penguins PR.The Pens\u2019 special teams have been thriving lately. They\u2019re heading into Saturday\u2019s matchup having gone 16-for-16 on the PK over their last four games, and they\u2019re currently ranked second in the NHL with a 29.4 percent power-play success rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Columbus Blue Jackets (21-19-7, 49 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (22-14-10, 54 points, 3rd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[257,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-414839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-general","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-16-at-6.19.15\u202fPM.png\"\/)
<\/a>Kent Johnson played a season-high 20:55 during his first game with Bowness. The Jackets could be hoping to see some more production from the second-line winger if he keeps getting more playing time going forward.Like the Penguins, the Blue Jackets have at times had a problems with holding on to late leads through the first half of the season. They blew third-period leads 15 times in their first 47 games, per Brian Hedger<\/a> of the Columbus Dispatch. When asked about that habit after the Jackets held on to a comfortable lead in Thursday\u2019s win over the Vancouver Canucks, Bowness said, per Portzline<\/a>: \u201cI don\u2019t even worry about it. It was before I got here. I\u2019m just not worried about it\u2026 That\u2019s in the past. I know how I want us to play, so that\u2019s the bottom line. And we\u2019re building on that.\u201d![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/tsz3yrxcgesonz87pj39.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n