Head Like a Hole: Blackhawks at Blue Jackets Preview

For the second time in six days, the Blackhawks and Blue Jackets will meet on the ice, with the scene shifting to Columbus for Wednesday’s tilt in what’ll be the final game ahead of the Olympic break for both teams.

Much of what was discussed with regards to CBJ ahead of last Friday’s game still rings true: the Blue Jackets are on fire, now with a stretch of 10-1 in their last 11 games after beating the St. Louis Blues on the road last Saturday and concluding a road trip with a 3-0 win over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night. Columbus still sits five points behind the Boston Bruins for the second wild card spot out East, but it does have a game in hand on the Bruins above them and multiple games in hand over Toronto and Washington, the two teams tied with CBJ’s current total of 63 points. It’ll be a hard sprint to the finish but the Blue Jackets have made things significantly more interesting from their vantage point than they were a month ago.

Expect the CBJ lineup to look similar to what as on the ice against New Jersey on Tuesday night, save for a likely change in goal:

As for the Hawks, Wednesday’s morning skate was an optional one but the news that followed did involve some lineup changes, most notably involving Ryan Greene:

Greene, Lafferty and Levshunov are the Blackhawks’ scratches tonight in Columbus. Foligno is officially back in.

This could also be the last game of Bedard and Nazar together on the first line. Blashill said Bedard will be ready to take faceoffs after the break, and Nazar will…

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 4, 2026

That would suggest Foligno is in on the fourth line for Greene, with everything else likely staying the way it was at practice on Tuesday:

Blackhawks lines in practice have flipped Moore and Greene at 2C/4C:

Nazar-Bedard-Bertuzzi
Teravainen-Moore-Burakovsky
Donato-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Dach-Greene-Slaggert
Foligno-Lafferty

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Rinzel
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Levshunov

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 3, 2026

Having Greene scratched feels a little frustrating when some other players have been trending harder in the direction of needing a night off in the press box (hey there Burakovsky!) but it’s the final game before a handful of weeks off and it’s hard to muster too much annoyance at the moment. The Hawks took advantage of porous goaltending on Monday night to light up the scoreboard at home, and here’s hoping they saved themselves a few more goals for this evening.

Let’s go Hawks.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Blue Jackets
46.55% (28th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.54% (16th)
44.26% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.62% (14th)
2.7 (26th) — Goals per game — 3.09 (t-17th)
3.14 (19th) — Goals against per game — 3.2 (22nd)
47.1% (t-29th) — Faceoffs — 50.8% (11th)
19.5% (19th) — Power play — 19.9% (18th)
85.6% (1st) — Penalty kill — 76.9% (t-27th)
(All stats from this season)