Columbus will have to start its season without Ivan Provorov, and the Blue Jackets’ blue line is suddenly looking thin fast.
The defenseman is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury, according to The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline, and he will miss tonight’s opener against the Buffalo Sabres. Blue Jackets head coach Rick Bowness said Provorov is “absolutely heartbroken” about being forced to sit because of the injury.
This is the first time in Provorov’s NHL career that he has missed a game because of injury. Portzline pointed out that he did miss three games in the 2021-22 season, but that came because of COVID-19 protocols, not a physical setback.
Provorov was hurt in Columbus’ final preseason game, and his absence comes at a bad time for a defense already dealing with multiple injuries. Damon Severson is coming back from a shoulder injury and is week-to-week, while Dante Fabbro is also week-to-week with an upper-body injury, per Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch.
Losing Provorov strips away the Blue Jackets’ No. 2 defenseman, and he’s been much more than a typical second-pairing piece. Even with Zach Werenski sitting atop the depth chart, Provorov handled a No. 1 workload last season, averaging 24:48 of ice time per game, which ranked in the NHL’s top 10. He also carried a major load on the penalty kill.
That kind of workload made him central to Columbus’ structure, whether he was in a featured role with the Philadelphia Flyers or logging heavy minutes for the Blue Jackets. Now the team has to open the year with a defense that looks very different from what it expected.
Per Hedger, the second pairing is projected to be Carson Soucy and Emil Andrae. Soucy only recently landed a full-time deal after skating through the preseason on a PTO, while Andrae arrived in a recent trade. Behind them, the depth options are Jake Christiansen and Erik Gudbranson.
If everyone were healthy, three of those four names likely wouldn’t be in the lineup. Instead, Columbus is forced to patch things together for at least the next week, with several key defensemen still working back from injuries.
The Blue Jackets want to make the playoffs in 2026-27, but these early absences make it much harder to build momentum right out of the gate in the Metropolitan Division.
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