Just about any way you slice it, the Blue Jackets are entering a pivotal offseason.
The fruits of a rebuild that yielded high draft picks each year from 2021-24 have made it to the NHL and gained critical experience. Just missing out the Stanley Cup Playoffs two years in a row has led to frustration from head coach Rick Bowness, players and fans alike. And some key players hitting free agency puts an onus on president of hockey operations/general manager Don Waddell to make important decisions leading up to July 1.
Add it all up and there’s a lot on Waddell’s plate, but one of the NHL’s most experienced general managers also has reason to believe his team isn’t that far away from contention. Those young players continue to give the Blue Jackets a bright future, especially when combined with the team’s veteran core. And with the salary cap rising again, the Blue Jackets have around $40 million to use while making those tough decisions.
A few weeks ago, we detailed the plan for Waddell as he goes into the offseason, but now felt like a good time to take a deeper dive on where the roster sits now that we’ve progressed closer toward the summer days of roster movement.
So what might Waddell do as he looks to turn the Blue Jackets into a playoff team in 2026-27? Let’s take a look at the roster and think about what might be next.
Roster Breakdown
Forwards
Signed: Conor Garland (through 2032), Mathieu Olivier (2031), Sean Monahan (2029), Miles Wood (2029), Dmitri Voronkov (2027), Kent Johnson (2027), Kirill Marchenko (2027), Isac Lundeström (2027)
Restricted free agents: Adam Fantilli, Cole Sillinger
Unrestricted free agents: Charlie Coyle, Boone Jenner, Mason Marchment, Danton Heinen
Depth players signed (alphabetical order): Luca Del Bel Belluz (2027), Jordan Dumais (2027), Joshua Eernisse (2027), Oiva Keskinen (2028), Max McCue (2027), Luca Pinelli (2028)
Depth free agents: Zach Aston-Reese (UFA), Hudson Fasching (UFA), Brendan Gaunce (UFA), James Malatesta (RFA), Hunter McKown (RFA), Mikael Pyythiä (RFA), Owen Sillinger (UFA), Jack Williams (RFA)
Unsigned prospect to watch: Cayden Lindstrom
Analysis: So much of the Blue Jackets’ offseason plan will be based on what happens with the team’s unrestricted free agents, and three of the biggest ones are up front in Jenner, Coyle and Marchment. For those counting, that’s only the squad’s longest-tenured player ever and team captain, a play-in-all-situations center coming off one of the best years of his career, and a player who spent much of his tenure with the team on the first line after a midseason trade.
Waddell had initial discussions with the trio down the stretch, and all three said they enjoyed playing in Columbus and expressed interest in returning, but contracts still must be worked out.
Columbus also faces the fact that two of the team’s core young forwards are in need of new contracts in Fantilli and Sillinger. The bigger questions there are not about whether they will return but how long each will be signed for and for how much money, as both are integral parts of the team’s future, but the final dollar amounts and commitments must fit within the team’s long-term contract vision.
The Blue Jackets also have contracts for key contributors Marchenko, Johnson and Voronkov up after this season, so figuring out how everything fits together for the foreseeable future will be a big part of Waddell’s summer.
When it comes to young reinforcements, the Blue Jackets have to be encouraged by the play of Del Bel Belluz (58 points in 55 games) and Pyyhtiä (16 multipoint games) at the AHL level, and both may be at the point where they can be regular contributors at the NHL level. Pinelli (46 points in 68 games as a rookie) and Williams (six game-winning goals) also turned in solid showings with the Monsters.
A first-round pick in 2024, Lindstrom seems set to return to Michigan State after getting through the 2025-26 season healthy while trying to shake the rust off from injuries that cost him the bulk of the previous two seasons.
Defensemen
Signed: Ivan Provorov (through 2032), Damon Severson (2031), Dante Fabbro (2029), Zach Werenski (2028), Jake Christiansen (2027), Denton Mateychuk (2027)
Restricted free agent: Egor Zamula
Unrestricted free agents: Erik Gudbranson, Brendan Smith
Depth players signed (alphabetical order): Boston Buckberger (2028), Charlie Elick (2029), Caleb MacDonald (2027), Luca Marrelli (2029), Guillaume Richard (2027)
Depth free agents: Corson Ceulemans (RFA), Dysin Mayo (UFA), Stanislav Svozil (RFA)
Unsigned prospect to watch: Jackson Smith
Analysis: A year ago, the Blue Jackets went into the offseason having to make major decisions on the blue line with both Provorov and Fabbro set to hit unrestricted free agency, and the team chose to bring both back on long-term deals.
That means things are a lot more settled here this time around, but there are still things to figure out. Gudbranson’s four-year contract expired at the end of the season; the Blue Jackets will have to decide whether to bring the alternate captain back or be in the market for help on the right side. Zamula played in 20 games after being added from Philadelphia at midseason and was in and out of the lineup down the stretch, but he’s another body who would add depth if the Blue Jackets choose to keep him.
Richard, Marrelli and Ceulemans all had solid seasons at the AHL level but are continuing to get experience at the pro level, so there might not be immediate help coming from the minor league level, while Smith is set to play another season at Penn State after an impactful debut season in college hockey after being chosen 14th overall in 2025.
Goaltenders
Signed: Elvis Merzlikins (through 2027)
Restricted free agent: Jet Greaves
Unrestricted free agent: Ivan Fedotov
Depth players signed (alphabetical order): Evan Gardner (2029), Nolan Lalonde (2027)
Depth free agent: Zach Sawchenko (UFA)
Unsigned prospect to watch: Sergei Ivanov
Analysis: Waddell said at the end of the season he was happy with the job Greaves and Merzlikins did as the Jackets’ goaltending tandem this year, and the two held the fort and played every minute for Columbus this season.
Greaves is now due a contract as a restricted free agent, and it’s not hard to imagine the Blue Jackets committing to the goalie who impressed throughout the season with both his play and his consistency. Merzlikins is now down to one season on his five-year contract, which would give the team flexibility should it decide his salary cap hit could be moved, but Waddell warned that it’s not necessarily easy or prudent to find goalies on the market.
How things will shake out at the AHL level will also bear watching; Gardner has completed his junior career and seems likely to be part of the mix in Cleveland, while Sawchenko has impressed in the playoffs and is a veteran who has steadied the ship in past seasons. It may be time for Ivanov to come over, as well, as the 2022 fifth-round pick is out of contract in his native Russia and has put together three solid seasons in the KHL (.923 save percentage).
Ways to Improve
Free Agency
For a variety of reasons, this isn’t the path it once was for many teams to make a splash, and it might be doubly true for a CBJ team that has big fish to fry with its own free agents this summer.
As Waddell pointed out, the team’s pool of more than $40 million in cap space going into the offseason isn’t as large as it sounds given the unrestricted free agents on the CBJ roster as well as the fact that Fantilli, Sillinger and Greaves are RFAs this season and Marchenko, Johnson and Voronkov will be a year from now.
“This year, if we don’t make it to the cap, it might be because we know next year we have multiple-year contracts coming up,” Waddell said. “I think that’s where we have to look at it from the business side of projecting out contracts. You have a lot of guys coming up next year. You have more guys the following year, some key guys. You have to put it all in your planning.
“Let’s say you have $5 million extra, you say this guy will help us, but you have to give him four years. Two, three and four may be difficult years. That’s all stuff we’ll figure out.”
The NHL landscape has also changed with the cap going up, as last summer and fall were key examples of how many top players now have the ability to stay with their teams and proved it by re-signing.
This year’s UFA market at the moment is highlighted by the CBJ contingent, plus forwards Alex Tuch, Evgeni Malkin, Anthony Mantha, Bobby McMann and Jaden Schwartz as well as defensemen Rasmus Andersson, Darren Raddysh, John Carlson and Jacob Trouba. Considering the age of many of those players and the current cap situation for the Jackets, it may be more of a situation where the team looks to fill in around the edges than make a splash.
Trades
If there’s a hallmark of Waddell’s career as a general manager, it’s that he’s not afraid to make a deal. In his six years in Carolina, he added Dougie Hamilton, Patrick Marleau, Vincent Trocheck, Brent Burns and Max Pacioretty, among others, in non-deadline trades as he tried to bolster the Canes in their push for the Stanley Cup.
This past season alone, Waddell added Coyle and Wood before the campaign then acquired Marchment, Garland and Heinen in midseason deals. The data also shows this is among the best way to build teams – for the eight teams left in the second round of the playoffs, 74 of their players were added via trade, far more than the draft (56) and free agency (31).
Of course, it always takes two to tango, but the market certainly opens up around the draft and free agency as teams reconfigure their squads, look to add draft capital and sign players. And could this be a time the Blue Jackets, who see their window opening in the short term, part with a mid-first-round pick that likely wouldn’t help the big club until down the road?
Internal Growth
In the days after the season, Waddell described the team’s young core by saying “that’s gonna be our franchise for a lot of years.” After a 2024-25 season in which most of the young players took major steps forward, this past campaign was more of a grab bag, including healthy scratches down the stretch for such players as Johnson and Voronkov.
The easiest and potentially biggest way the team can improve is to have those players at the top of their game. Marchenko and Voronkov will be 26 at the start of next season, Greaves will be 25, Johnson (turning 24) and Fantilli (turning 22) will have birthdays early in the campaign, Sillinger will be 23 and Mateychuk will be 22, giving the Blue Jackets a bevy of talented players who should continue to get better and step into bigger leadership roles.
There’s also the potential for Del Bel Belluz (22) or Pyyhtiä (24) to cement themselves as full-timers at the NHL level after gaining experience at the top level in years past and putting together impressive AHL campaigns.
If the Blue Jackets are to be contenders for the foreseeable future, much of the push will come from this group continuing to come of age and leading the way.
