The Slowest Drink at the Saddest Bar on the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City: Blackhawks vs. Blue Jackets Preview

The Blackhawks need a bounce-back performance in the worst way following Thursday’s debacle in Pittsburgh, and they’ll have an opportunity for that just over 24 hours later at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

But that rebound will not come easy against a Columbus team that is one of the league’s hottest sides at the moment, winners in seven of eight. That stretch hasn’t quite pulled CBJ into playoff contention just yet, though, as it’s now up to 57 points in 52 games (25-20-7) but still 10 points behind the Boston Bruins, who are currently in the second wild card spot out East (32-20-3). Columbus does have three games in hand on Boston, which helps, but there are also three other teams above Columbus in the standings and three more tied with them at 57 points. It’s going to be a steep challenge for CBJ to contend for the postseason because of how bad they were in the first half of the season.

Perhaps this latest run is all explained by what happened three weeks ago, when Columbus fired head coach Dean Evason — along with assistant Steve McCarthy, a No. 23 overall pick of the Hawks way back in 1999! — and replaced him with Rick Bowness, who’s 6-1 behind the CBJ bench. Some regression is likely due for the Blue Jackets from this current pace, although we’ll see if that arrives in time to help the Blackhawks this evening.

One on-ice reason for the Blue Jackets’ second-half surge comes in net, where 2022 undrafted free-agent signee Jet Greaves (16-12-6 record, .908 save percentage, 2.68 goals-against average) may have supplanted starter Elvis Merzlikins (9-8-1, .882, 3.76) in his first full NHL season after three seasons in the AHL. Greaves dabbled at the NHL level in 2024-25 with sparkling numbers in 11 games (7-2-2, .938, 1.91) and is the latest contender to solve the goaltending issues that have plagued the Blue Jackets for several seasons.

The CBJ offensive punch is a little top-heavy and starts on the blue line, whether Zach Werenski paces the team in goals (19) and points (57). Blossoming forward Kirill Marchenko also has 19 goals and is near a point-per-game pace with 44 in 48. Three more players have eclipsed the 30-point plateau in Charlie Coyle (35 in 52), Adam Fantilli (34 in 52) and Dmitri Voronkov (31 in 52). It’s the middle name of that trio raising an eyebrow or two, though, as the No. 3 overall pick from 2023 hasn’t quite taken the anticipated step forward in this third NHL season after posting 54 points in a full 82 games last season.

Columbus’ last game was a 5-3 win over the Flyers on Wednesday night, so they’ve had rest that Chicago will not ahead of this game. Here was the lineup from that game, with Merzlikins apparently getting the nod in net once again, per the morning skate.

Blue Jackets lines per @markscheig.bsky.social Marchment-Fantilli-Marchenko Jenner-Monahan-Johnson Sillinger-Coyle-Olivier Voronkov-Lundestrom-Wood Werenski-Severson Provorov-Mateychuk Zamula-Gudbranson Merzlikins

— lineslineslines.bsky.social (@lineslineslines.bsky.social) January 28, 2026 at 6:02 PM

As for the Hawks, things feel awfully bleak at the moment, with the team losing four in a row and posting a 2-5-2 record in the last nine. While the 4-3 shootout loss on Tuesday wasn’t the worst performance overall, blowing a three-goal lead will never go down well and the team then followed it up with a dreadful performance in Pittsburgh on Thurdsay. The only good news from that game is that this one arrives soon after, offering the Hawks a chance to make us all forget about it, perhaps no more than the team’s No. 2 pick from 2024, who had an especially miserable performance in that game.

Nick Foligno departed last night’s game with an injury and, with no morning skate, his availability will remain in the air. Either Landon Slaggert or Sam Lafferty would seem to be the potential replacements should Foligno be unable to play. Spencer Knight is the expected starter after Arvid Soderblom played on Thursday night.

Blackhawks in warmups Nazar-Bedard-Teräväinen Greene-Moore-Burakovsky Bertuzzi-Dickinson-Mikheyev Donato-Foligno-Dach Vlasic-Crevier Kaiser-Levshunov Grzelcyk-Murphy Söderblom Knight

— Scott Powers (@scottpowers.bsky.social) January 29, 2026 at 5:36 PM

Three more games left before the Olympic break and it’s high time for some encouraging performances before it arrives.

Let’s go Hawks.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Blue Jackets
46.67% (28th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.45% (15th)
44.33% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.57% (14th)
2.65 (26th) — Goals per game — 3.04 (t-19th)
3.13 (t-19th) — Goals against per game — 3.29 (25th)
47.2% (t-28th) — Faceoffs — 50.7% (t-11th)
19.6% (17th) — Power play — 19.4% (19th)
85.6% (1st) — Penalty kill — 76.2% (28th)
(All stats from this season)