Suddenly, the collision is Saturday between Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings about more than just another outdoor game.
To many surprises when it was announced and even before the season, the battle before an estimated 90,000 plus fans at Ohio Stadium will have serious playoffs.
When the clubs take the ice for the Stadium Series deal, Red Wings and Blue Jackets will hold the eastern conference’s two wild card game positions.
Given that the red wings and blue jackets are far from natural rivals and have hardly any playoff history in the Stanley Cup-delivered Detroit a four-game-sweep in his lonely meeting 2009-you could not ask for a better scenario.
With the league in the last third of the regular season, both Detroit and Columbus have earned 66 points in 59 matches. The red wings have the first wild-card site after serving another victory in the regulation time. They also have two more rules/overtime gains, the other tiebreaker.
But Blue Jackets has a golden opportunity to make a huge statement in this fight for the inside during the hunt for a playoffs.
Detroit may have won four straight meetings, including the first of three this season, but Columbus sent a message during the first half of a home-and-home set on Thursday.
Blue Jackets delivered an impressive 5-2 victory in Detroit, and not only deleted a 1-0 deficit but withdraws with a four-goal second period. The result was enough for the Red Wings coach Todd McLellan to call out his players, especially Captain Dylan Larkin, for a subpar performance.
By snapping Detroit’s winning line with two games and serving a third victory in a row, Blue Jackets continues to write one of the best stories of the season. Between the terrible death of the star forward Johnny Gaudreau just before training camp and rash of injuries that affected the first half of the season, this could have been another disappointing campaign in the Ohio capital.
Instead, the sub-dogs hang tough and press to snap a four-year run of missing the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“This has been fantastic,” said Kent Johnson. “I’m so proud of how this team plays.”
Speaking of the playoffs, the red wings make a strong pressure to end their own swoon. Detroit, who fired coach Derek Lalonde and hired McLellan during the holiday, has since put out a record of 17-5-2 and has missed the playoffs for the past eight seasons.
These troops have been on dry steps since Christmas, and they needed every last point.
The Eastern Conference Playoff Race has become extremely narrow, with a couple of multi -year powers in the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins not long after the wild card positions. If that is not enough, a couple of other teams are also on the task of finishing long distances without moving on to the NHL’s second season.
Right there with Rangers and Bruins as the calendar to be turned to Mars is the Ottawa senators, who last reached the playoffs in the spring of 2017, and Montreal Canadiens -who have not only failed to move on for the past three seasons since their surprise went to 2021 Stanley Cup then.
Usually outdoor games are most relevant to the fans on the tribun. When the playoffs chase heating, it will be worth keeping track of how the next chapter plays out in the Buckeye state.
