Pre-game thoughts: Jackets look to bounce back from poor effort in Edmonton

The Columbus Blue Jackets look to bounce back from 3-1 to Edmonton Monday night as they take on the Vancouver Canucks who are winners of their past two games and sit two points ahead of the Jackets in the standings with a 13-9-2 record.

Keys to lighting em up

Solve Robert Luongo. Luongo is a hot right now going 3-1-1 in his last five outings. He has a 2.28 gaa and .919 save% - after a rough start he is back to his all star form. He's also riding a 137 minute shutout streak and hasn't been scored on since November 23rd! The Jackets need to attack Luongo....and keep attacking. They can't afford to get frustrated.


Norrena must shine. Freddy Norrena is now the #1 guy until Pascal Leclaire gets back to 100%. Norrena was able to shoulder the load last year becoming the first Blue Jacket goaltender to finish the season with an above .500 record and he must build off that success starting tonight. This team is expecting much more than a .500 record this year and will need Norrena to give them excellent goaltending to help them get there -- no softies!

Special teams and secondary scoring. At the same token the Jackets need more scoring....more importantly they need their special teams to be special and get those timely goals. The Jackets have played well of late at even strength and have down the PP opportunities but they need to convert. Nash and Z can't carry the flag offensively every night -- guys like Fedorov and Vyborny who have basically been invisible the past few outings and need to find ways to get on the scoresheet.

Shut down Vancouver triple threat. That threat being the Sedins and Markus Naslund. Those three lead the way for the Canucks offensively and have a combined 69 points. If the Jackets can keep those three off the score sheet then they have a great shot at winning this game.


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Both Chicago and St. Louis won last night to pull ahead of the Jackets by two points in the Central..... The Jackets need to keep pace tonight and win a big road game in Vancouver. This is a team they are looking up to in the standings so there should be no problem getting up for this one. They squandered away the first two points of this 3 game road trip against Edmonton - time to grab a couple here tonight. They just need to play the same way they did against Minnesota and stay within their system and they'll be right in this one til the final horn.

The Canucks won a game here in Natiowide they shouldn't have - its time for the Jackets to repay the favor.

Its a late 10:00 start Jacket fans so gets your pre-game naps in early!

-LTL