2 weeks Ago
COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s amazing how quickly the world can change at the end of an NHL season. A week ago, the Columbus Blue Jackets were making a jet-fueled finish to the season, hoping to catch the Montreal Canadiens and earn a playoff spot. Now, after watching the Canadiens hold them off on the season’s penultimate day, the Blue Jackets are fully into offseason mode.
Advertisement For the players, that means allowing their bodies and brains to recover after what was an exhausting season both emotionally and physically. For management and coaches, that means evaluating areas where they can improve and setting a strategy for what figures to be a fascinating offseason. The Blue Jackets were the last NHL club eliminated from the playoff race, and their 23-point improvement from last season is the second-largest single-season improvement in franchise history.
The sense, however, is that general manager Don Waddell is not content with slow growth. Here are 15 storylines we will be monitoring this offseason: Goaltending This seems to be at the top of everybody’s list, so let’s get after it. With the numbers he put up this season — once again among the worst in the league in save percentage and goals-against average — and with the late-season, on-ice temper tantrums, it’s hard to imagine the Blue Jackets bringing back Elvis Merzlikins.
But Waddell has mentioned that the “status quo” is a possibility. The issue? Merzlikins has two years remaining on a contract that pays him $5.4 million per season.
Is there a trade market? Likely not for a “hockey” trade, but if Waddell is willing to retain a portion of his salary or attach a sweetener (draft pick, prospect, etc.) maybe it could happen. Maybe.
Contract buyouts are painful, but it might be the club’s only out here. Per Puckpedia, it would cost the Blue Jackets $1.5 million in 2025-26, $2.
8 million in 2026-27 and $1.63 million in 2027-28, and 2028-29. The NHL buyout window is open from June 15 (or 48 hours after the Stanley Cup is awarded) through June 30, the final day of the league year.
You might look at his contract — he has a one-way NHL deal for next season — and conclude that Jet Greaves most definitely will be in Columbus. If you look at the way he played in the NHL this season, especially the final two weeks, it seems like a no-brainer. Advertisement Greaves went 7-2-2 with a .
938 save percentage and 1.91 goals-against average in 11 starts, including his five-game burner at the end of the season that nearly pushed the Blue Jackets into the playoffs. Yeah, he’s an NHL goalie.
The only question here is if he’s a classic backup (20 to 30 starts) or if he’s in a tandem with a goaltender who arrives via trade or free agency. Daniil Tarasov’s season was a mystery. He did himself no favors, it seems, by declining a rehab assignment with AHL Cleveland in December.
After that, he was never given a chance to run with the starter’s job, even during stretches when Merzlikins struggled. The question now is whether or not Tarasov, a restricted free agent, is tendered a qualifying offer. Those are due 48 hours after the draft.
If he doesn’t get a qualifying offer, he’s an unrestricted free agent. Defense Ivan Provorov wants to stay in Columbus. The Blue Jackets would like to keep him.
So what’s the problem? At 28 years old, Provorov has reached the point at which top-four defensemen typically sign seven- or eight-year contracts with significant money attached. That’s what Provorov was looking for earlier this season, which the Blue Jackets seem to understand. The Blue Jackets are reluctant to go that far into the future with yet another defenseman, which Provorov seems to understand.
This could just be a case of two sides amicably divorcing. Provorov’s younger brother, Vladimir, has committed to Ohio State beginning in 2027. That’s an emotional pull, Provorov admitted, so stay tuned.
The hope was that Damon Severson would rebound from a tough first season in Columbus, but his second season was more of the same, and maybe worse. He was a healthy scratch 12 times, including the final nine games of the season, which is quite a commentary for a player making $6.25 million per season.
Advertisement The issue: Severson has six years (gulp!) remaining on his contract, so forget about a buyout. That would stretch 12 years into the future. The Blue Jackets have to get Severson back up to speed.
He has to realize what the Blue Jackets need from him — a no-frills, low-risk puck-mover — and stop trying to produce offensively at a rate that justifies his contract. The only other option is to trade a major asset along with Severson to a club willing to take his salary. Man, I miss the Coyotes.
The Blue Jackets’ front office will need to get a grip on what the trade and free-agent markets will look like this summer before deciding what to do with Dante Fabbro and others. They’d like to keep the 26-year-old, though, because he seemed to fit quite well on the top pair next to Mr. Everything, Zach Werenski.
Fabbro is a right-shot, he can move the puck and while not particularly large, he does not back down from conflict. Waddell claiming him off waivers early this season was a big part of the Blue Jackets’ success. Even if he’s not seen as a long-term fixture next to Werenski, he would seem to be a player worth keeping.
Johnson, 38, played 41 games this season in his second stint with the Blue Jackets. He’s played in 1,228 games, the sixth-most in NHL history among U.S.
-born defensemen. If he decides to retire, it’s been one heck of a career, including a Stanley Cup win in 2022 with Colorado. No word yet on what Johnson is thinking.
Either way, it seems unlikely he would return to the Blue Jackets ...
as a player, anyway. Forwards Sean Kuraly is the fourth homegrown player to play for the Blue Jackets, but it’s fair to wonder if he’ll continue to play where he lives. Kuraly is set to be a UFA, and so far there’s been no indication from the club whether he’s in their plans for next season and beyond.
Advertisement The Jackets are as deep at center as they’ve ever been, but it would be hard to replace Kuraly’s faceoff wins, penalty-killing and competitive spirit in the middle of the fourth line. Waddell and staff are likely predicting if cheaper fourth-line options — Kuraly was making $2.5 million per season — will be available.
Zach Aston-Reese and his agent were wise to be proactive. Aston-Reese signed a one-year extension through the next season, securing his spot in the bottom six. James van Riemdsyk and Justin Danforth (and Kuraly) are all pending UFAs, and there will only be so many chairs when the music stops playing this summer.
Van Riemsdyk had 16 goals and has said he wants to stay. Danforth is a jack of all trades who has long expressed his desire to stay here. What will the bottom six look like a week or so into July? Anybody’s guess for now.
Yegor Chinakhov is the only one of the Blue Jackets’ young forwards who didn’t bloom this season. Instead, he once again missed considerable time with a nagging back injury, wiping out his hot start to the season and rendering him rusty when he returned late in the season. If we learned anything last summer, it’s that Waddell has little patience for players who are chronically injured.
Jake Bean, Nick Blankenburg, Adam Boqvist, Alexandre Texier and others were sent packing, leading many to wonder if Chinakhov would be part of a trade package this offseason. GM’s office It’s not exactly a bumper crop of talent, but there are always immediate fixes available. Waddell has said that he and his staff have spent considerable time and energy in recent days looking forward to the market of players who will be available on July 1.
Keep in mind, Waddell now has a team on the rise with a staggering amount of salary-cap space available to lure players this summer. If Mitch Marner doesn’t extend with Toronto..
. The biggest push likely would be on defense (especially if Provorov is allowed to walk) and at goaltender, if the Jackets do clear out that room with the exception of Greaves. Advertisement We must first establish whether there is a willingness and, yes, we know Waddell will go there.
He’s done it before with the Carolina Hurricanes, and when asked last week if he’d consider the same with his new organization, he dropped the ol’ “tool in the toolbox” line. But it’s also important to remember that in order to sign a player to an offer sheet, you must have the draft-pick compensation set out by the NHL’s CBA. There are different levels of compensation based on the cap hit of contract offer, but many of them include a second-round pick.
The Blue Jackets don’t have a 2026 second-round pick. It was sent to Montreal with Patrik Laine in the trade last summer that brought Jordan Harris to Columbus. They could still sign a player to an offer sheet.
But unless they reacquire that second-round pick from the Canadiens, there are some offers that won’t be available. Here is last year’s compensation table: Here is the 2024 compensation for an offer sheet signed by any of this year's RFA's: $1,511,701 AAV or less – No compensation $1,5111,701 to $2,290,457 – 3rd round pick $2,290,457 to $4,580,917 – 2nd round pick $4,580,917 to $6,871,374 – 1st and 3rd round picks $6,871,374 to..
. — CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) June 4, 2024 The Blue Jackets have two first-round draft picks, their own and the one they acquired in the trade that sent defenseman David Jiricek to the Minnesota Wild. As of now, those picks are No.
13 and No. 20. Safe bet: the Blue Jackets will not be selecting two players in the first round.
Not only are those picks available, they’re on Facebook Marketplace. One gets the feeling that Waddell wants to trade one (or both) of them to add an immediate infusion of NHL talent. Waddell has raved about the Blue Jackets’ dressing-room culture, how the organization’s foundation — young and old — blended this season.
He would like to keep much of it together. Advertisement As of July 1, captain Boone Jenner will be in the final year of his contract and thus able to sign an extension. In doing so, Waddell could ensure that Jenner, who turns 32 in June, will spend his entire career in Columbus.
Other “foundational” players who could sign extensions when the new league year begins on July 1: Adam Fantilli and Cole Sillinger. Negotiations with restricted free agents often create summer headlines for the Blue Jackets. To be fair, that can be a tricky business.
The player doesn’t have much leverage other than an offer sheet, and those are still rare in the NHL. The Blue Jackets have one big RFA, one moderate RFA and one curious RFA. The big one (literally) is Dmitri Voronkov, who had 23-24-47 and 55 penalty minutes in 72 games this season.
He spent most of the season on the No. 1 line, bringing size and presence. You’d like to see him be a bit nastier, but that may come.
Getting Jordan Harris signed to a new deal shouldn’t be difficult, because he doesn’t have much leverage. He played only 33 games this season, saving his best play for the final two weeks of the season. And, as noted above, Tarasov could go either way.
It doesn’t feel like a qualifying offer is forthcoming, but we shall see. (Photo of Elvis Merzlikins: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images).
