Nashville Predators @ Columbus Blue Jackets 09/16/07 5:00 P.M. EST

According to the Dispatch here is tonight's Blue Jackets roster:

Forwards:

9 David Vyborny
13 Nikolai Zherdev
24 Kris Beech
27 Manny Malhotra
38 Joakim Lindstrom
40 Jared Boll
41 Adam Pineault
43 Tom Sestito
47 Geoff Platt
49 Dan Fritsche
56 Stefan Legein
61 Rick Nash

Defensemen:

6 Ron Hainsey
8 Jan Hejda
10 Duvie Westcott
44 Sheldon Brookbank
46 Mikki Maenpaa
97 Rostislav Klesla

Goaltenders:

31 Pascal Leclaire
1 Tomas Popperle

No TV but the game can be heard on FM: 101.1 or AM: 1460.

Some key stories to watch:

The Jackets and Preds used to have a great little rivalry brewing....that is until the Preds starting smoking us every chance they got. The Jackets were 0-8 against this team last year. Now that the Preds have had to purge some of their roster (they lost Paul Kariya, Kimo Timmonen, Peter Forsberg, Scott Hartnell & Thomas Vokoon - OUCH!) due to budget concerns one's got to figure we'll match up to them better. The test starts tonight when both teams kick off their preseasons against one another.

Nash-Zherdev-Vybonry - certainly they are the line to watch tonight. Lets see what kind of magic that can create in their first time out. Tonight will go a long way towards seeing if this little experiment has some legs.

Kris Beech, Jan Hejda and Sheldon Brookbank all make their Columbus Blue Jacket debuts. I'm very excited about seeing Jan Hejda in action.

Pascal Leclaire should get the start. He's shown the talent but has yet to show the durability. This is a key year for him so lets see how he starts it.

Duvie Wescott is another player who was slown down by injuries last season. He is a guy that I believe can really help as he's one of our better puck movers but he needs to show he's fully recovered from his concussion issues.

Not many in tonight's lineup are on the "bubble" so to speak. Guys that might fight their way into the lineup include Sheldon Brookbank, Kris Beech, Joakin Lindstrom and Geoff Platt (pictured above right) so lets see how they perform.

Cannon watch. We now know there will be some sort of cannon noise as part of the goal celebration in Nationwide however that's all we know. It will be interesting to see if the the Jackets game day ops can pull this off as I think the idea has great potential to make a Jackets game a truly unique experience in the NHL and world of professional sports.

Goal song. We know there will be a new goal song this year so tonight will be our first opportunity to here the candidates in live game action - now we just need to score a couple.

Uniform watch. Tonight will also mark the debut of the Jackets' new look in the uniform department. I'm personally a big fan of the change and can't wait to see the complete team in the new digs.

Hopefully some of you make it out to the game tonight.

-LTL