In the NHL, it’s one thing to make a big leap forward in the standings.
It’s another thing to turn that into consistent success.
The Blue Jackets were one of the best stories of the 2024-25 NHL season on the ice, adding 13 wins and 23 points in the standings in the first year under head coach Dean Evason.
That jump moved a young, talented team to within two points of a postseason berth, and it invigorated an already amped-up and engaged fan base that is starving for a return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The next step is now to take, well, another step, and it’s not always easy to do so. Expectations will raise in the fan base and the hockey world, and the Blue Jackets won’t be sneaking up on anyone when the puck is dropped again in October. It’s an unforgiving, difficult league, where vibes don’t necessarily transfer from one season into the next. A tough start or a losing run can be hard to overcome no matter how much talent is on hand or the excitement there is going into a campaign.
So what can the Blue Jackets do to keep moving forward?
Finishing short of the postseason will be a major motivator, for sure, as a couple of CBJ players mentioned how hard they’ll approach their offseason training because of the bitter taste left in their mouths from falling short.
“The hunger is at an all-time high for this group,” captain Boone Jenner said. “I think we’re going to be taking that into the summer and into next season and everything. We have a style of play now that we know we need to do on a consistent basis to get to where we want to get to. I think we did a good job of sticking to that, but we have to continue to build on it moving forward.”
There's also the belief that the gains the team made this year are sustainable. It wasn’t just because the Blue Jackets scored 33 more goals and allowed 31 fewer than the year before, but because of how the team embraced the process to get better.
“We didn’t get to where we want to be, but (are we) optimistic? Yeah, for sure,” defenseman Erik Gudbranson said. “We took some major strides this year. I think the group just felt different. We were pushed ourselves to be better on a daily basis. We got some results from that, but not what we wanted. I think there’s a standard here now that we talked about in prior years that we didn’t quite accomplish, and now that’s here and that’s a very positive thing.”
For Evason, much of the offseason will be focus on addressing the areas where the Blue Jackets struggled to get the job done this past season. While the team’s defensive record was much better, Columbus still finished 25th in the NHL in goals allowed per game with 3.26, continuing a trend from recent seasons.
The Blue Jackets were also undone by special teams – they finished 22nd in the league in both power-play percentage (19.5) and penalty kill (22.0 percent) – and by a road record of 14-23-4 that placed the team 27th in the league with 32 points earned away from home.
“The road record sucked. Our special teams sucked,” Evason said. “Three areas, I guess – power play, penalty kill and playing on the road – have to get better for us to get more points. Have we identified exactly what we can do on the road? No. Do we have some thoughts? Yes. But will we sit down as a staff and go over it here and try to figure that out? Not try. We will figure it out. We have to figure it out.”
It also could be an active offseason for the Blue Jackets and president of hockey operations/general manager Don Waddell, who detailed his initial plans shortly after the season. The fact that he has two first-round draft picks at his disposal as well as some of the most cap room in the league means he has the flexibility to make almost any changes to the CBJ roster he would desire.
But Waddell also noted that many of the pieces are in place for the Blue Jackets to continue to make strides. Part of that is the team’s young core, as five of the team’s top eight scorers – Kirill Marchenko, Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli, Dmitri Voronkov and Cole Sillinger – were 24 years old or younger this season.
Another huge piece of the puzzle is a leadership group in place that Waddell sees as crucial to helping the team continue to grow. When asked why he feels confident the Blue Jackets can get even better next season, he pointed to such players as Jenner, Gudbranson, Sean Monahan, Zach Werenski and Mathieu Olivier.
“The easy answer is what we accomplished this year is a step,” Waddell said. “Our veteran group here – Monahan, Werenski, Olivier, Jenner, Gudbranson – these are all people that want to win and care. So I’m not worried about (going backwards) at all. It’s our job to try to make the team better, of course, but the group we have in that room, I have a lot of confidence in to continue on the path that we’ve started this year.”
And perhaps the biggest thing that the Blue Jackets built this year was hope. After two consecutive injury-plagued, frustrating seasons that saw playoff contention dashed in the early going, Columbus battled through soaring ups and dizzying downs to show they had what it took to be in the race until the very end.
Everything the Blue Jackets learned and went through this season should be a base for bigger things to come.
“I always believed in this franchise and this organization,” Werenski said. “It’s a place I love playing. It’s a place I love being. This is where I call home now. I always felt like we had everything at our disposal to be a great hockey club. I feel like we’re all starting to really take steps in that direction. I definitely believe in it, and I believe in the process, believe in the steps we’re taking, believe in the young guys, believe in the core we have here.”
