from Michael Arace of the Columbus Blue Jacket,

‒ The Jackets, for at least four or five more days, have one game-breaker: Artemi Panarin, who ranked 16th in the league in scoring heading into Tuesday night’s game. Tampa Bay, which leads the league with 94 points through 61 games, has three players among the league’s top nine in scoring: Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos.

One definition of “game-breaker”: The Jackets outshot the Lightning 19-6 and had the superior special teams during the first period. Kucherov scored on two breakaways, and the Lightning had a 2-0 lead at the first intermission. Game broken.

‒ In a perfect world, Kekalainen will trade both Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky — so he doesn’t lose them for nothing when they become unrestricted free agents on July 1 — and have enough assets to acquire a top-six forward and a decent goaltender (Detroit’s Jimmy Howard?) at the deadline.

In the real world, getting all of that done might be impossible. My cracked crystal ball says Panarin goes and Bobrovsky stays. There’s a strong market for the one and a soft market for the other. Plus, at the moment, Joonas Korpisalo isn’t exactly inspiring confidence.

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