His inclusion in the lineup will make it four Columbus born players suiting up for the Jackets in the game. Not bad for a small city that will "never be a hockey town".
Elvis Merzlikins will start the remainder of the season for the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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Props to Larsen for realizing that Elvis had never played more than 41 games in a season and that he can use a lost season to get Elvis used to playing a lot so he's ready to carry the weight once the team is ready to compete. I missed the Philly game, but he was apparently brilliant.
This is going to be 18 games for Elvis in the last 36 days of the season. Including 4 back to backs.
Some people are saying he should sit until next year but my thought on it is Laine is deciding on how long of a deal to sign this summer. If KJ comes in and has instant chemistry with him and Jake it may persuade Patty to take an 8 year vs a 4 or 5.
Edit: also apparently his age makes it so this will not burn a year of ELC. Not sure how true or how it works, but that's going around.
The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed University of Michigan defenseman Nick Blankenburg to a one-year, entry level contract for the remainder of the 2021-22 se...
www.nhl.com
IT'S GOING DOWN IN THE ROOM. THERE WILL BE FISTICUFFS!
As a follow up, there are a large number of comments across social media from Jackets Fans who seem split between complaining that we're signing players who played at Michigan and complaining that Johnson and Blankenburg are wearing 13 (Atkinson) and 77 (Anderson) respectively.
Two newest Jackets in the house tonight in Dirty Detroit to watch the game. Guess they gotta go pack their dorm rooms up and stuff before coming to C-Bus.
They are planning Johnson's debut to be Wednesday vs Montreal.
Holy hell, Blankenburg is short. Kent Johnson is 6'1"
William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog for the past 10 years. Douglas joined NHL.com in March 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today he profiles Ayodele Adeniye, a Hockey is for Everyone alumnus and a defenseman for Adrian College, which won the NCAA...