The Columbus Blue Jackets decided the outcome of Saturday’s game against the Nashville Predators eight hours before puck drop, when we found out the Jackets would ice a team without all these players:
You can quibble about whether the club should’ve tanked that hard (though it doesn’t seem like many are); they rested some extremely good players who could have definitely used a night off and the best-case scenario would’ve yielded a playoff date somewhere not in Pittsburgh. In the end, it worked: the players got their rest and the Jackets will face the Washington Capitals in the first round of the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs.