Foligno pulled from the line up at the last minute for “personal reasons.”

We have a drastic, last minute, substitution for tonight's games. 

According to a breaking news report from the Columbus Blue Jackets' Department of Public Relations, Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno will not play tonight when his Blue Jackets take on the Boston Bruins. The news is frankly shocking given the current position the Blue Jackets find themselves and given just how desperately they need this win tonight. The Blue Jackets currently boast just a 2 point lead over the Montreal Canadiens and when you consider what they did at the 2019 National Hockey League trade deadline the expectations is absolutely that this team will be making it into the postseason. The absence of Foligno will obviously severely hamper their chances of picking up a win against a tough Boston Bruins team that has been very hot over the past several games, and Foligno himself has to be acutely aware of that. 

That being said Foligno has always been a team guy and in order for him to be taking personal leave from the team at such an important time you have to imagine that there is something serious going on behind the scenes. Those of you who, like me, have closely followed the career of Nick Foligno will immediately jump to thoughts of his young daughter who has had a number of health issues in her very young life and thankfully I have some good news. According to the report from the Blue Jackets this incident is not related to his daughter's recent surgery so hopefully that means that she is still in great shape and is not related to his absence tonight.

That being said this does indicate that there is something big going on behind the scenes and our thoughts will be with the Foligno family, hopefully everything is perfectly fine. The Blue Jackets revealed that Foligno did not even travel to Boston with the team and with 3 more road games on the schedule coming up it is unclear if he plans to join the team on their current road trip or not. We will provide more details as information becomes available. 

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