Maggie Jenner can almost give her blender a break.
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The wires that have kept her husband's fractured jaw in place for the past five-plus weeks , requiring him to consume a liquid diet, are expected to be removed Thursday. If so, Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner will be able to play and eat solid food for the first time since Dec. 8, when a puck slammed into his face during a win over the St. Louis Blues at Nationwide Arena.
"If you think of what you can eat, it's not much, as far as getting food," Jenner said Wednesday, with his mouth still wired in place. "Dinner, lunch, I mean, it's a lot of the same things every day, and breakfast looks the same every day. It's a smoothie, and a lot of those."
Not just berry flavored smoothies, either.
Thanks to the Jenners' willingness to get creative with the blender in their kitchen, Jenner's been consuming all sorts of interesting "smoothie" flavor combinations. Some of the favorites: taco meat and rice, pasta with Bolognese sauce ... and chili.
They even tried to puree a slice of pizza, but that didn't turn out so great.
"My wife got pretty creative for lunch and dinner," Jenner said. "It started out with just soups, but now we're blending up everything. I mean, at the end of the day, you're just drinking something, so it's about getting a taste. It sounds gross, but when you're going through it, it tastes pretty good just to switch it up sometimes. It's been a grind, but I'm lucky that she's been there making all that for me, because I think if it were just me, I'd lose a lot more weight."
Jenner, who's planning to return Friday against the New Jersey Devils, has maintained his playing weight after a slight dip the first week of the injury. He's been skating with the team for more than a week while wearing a protective face shield, and joined one of the power play units at practice Wednesday in his usual role screening goalies in front of the net.
That's his primary area to patrol in the offensive zone, and is where the injury occurred. Jenner, who was recently named an NHL all-star for this season , was standing in the low slot when a shot by Blue Jackets defenseman Ivan Provorov deflected off a Blues player's stick and hit him in the face.
He left the game without returning, but tried to come back before a team physician found the fracture.
"At first, we thought we got away with it," Jenner said. "We didn't think anything was wrong ... then, the more 'doc' felt around, he didn't like how certain things were moving, the way it was lining up, and that's when we had to go get the real face scan, where you've got a better x-ray. That's where he found out it was broken."
That's also when Jenner's diet changed.
He never tried blended salmon, like former Blue Jackets defenseman Cody Goloubef did after breaking his jaw in 2015 in similar fashion, but Jenner did stay in touch with his former teammate throughout his recovery.
"It's just nice to talk to someone that's (been through it)," Jenner said. "He said he should've made a cookbook, because he's got a bunch of recipes from it. We'd talk about food, what to do and how you feel, how you feel when the wires are off, what you can do. The first thing he said was, 'I hope you lost some teeth, because you can actually get a straw or some sort of substance in there easier.' I was fortunate enough to have the fake teeth they could pull out."
Jenner was originally given an estimate of six weeks to return, so he's a little ahead of schedule.
He plans to wear a plastic "bubble" on his helmet at least until the league's all-star break the first week of February, and is anticipating jaw soreness once the wires are removed. That's why his first real meal in weeks is likely to be pasta rather than steak or a burger.
"I think we're going to start with soft foods, pasta and eggs," he said. "I'm just looking for a piece of bread at this point."
The Blue Jackets, meanwhile, will settle for having their captain back in the lineup and locker room.
"That's exciting," coach Pascal Vincent said. "This guy's tough. He's been practicing hard. Took his two front teeth out, so he could breathe and have some food, I guess, with a straw. His body fat has been good, his weight has been good. We were worried about his weight. He's a good pro and he's a tough man. That's impressive."
Vincent said Jenner will likely slot into the lineup as center of the second line, skating with rookie Adam Fantilli at left wing and Jack Rolsovic on the right. Fantilli, Cole Sillinger and rookie Dmitri Voronkov gained invaluable experience playing center while Jenner was out, which should now make the Blue Jackets a lot deeper down the middle.
"That's the byproduct," Vincent said. "It's a silver lining. It gives other guys a chance to play a different role, that they wouldn't necessarily (play). As an example, we had a chance to develop (Yegor) Chinakhov more on the penalty kill. He's seen a little bit more of that. (Jenner) and (Sean) Kuraly being out, it gave us no choice than to try some different players, and they've done well."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Boone Jenner expected to return Friday for Columbus Blue Jackets
