Don Waddell has been a busy man.
He’s keeping tabs on Blue Jackets Zach Werenski and Elvis Merzlikins as they’ve played at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. He’s been getting ready for the March 6 trade deadline, which is now just 16 days away. Oh, and he found some time during the team’s Olympic break to check out the biggest spectacle in American sports by watching Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, Calif.
Of course, it’s not like the Blue Jackets president of hockey operations and general manager was relaxing that much before that. He’s been aggressive this season in trying to help his team get out of its early-season struggles, with the big move coming Jan. 12 when he replaced head coach Dean Evason with Rick Bowness. Before that, he made such changes as acquiring forward Mason Marchment, dealing wing Yegor Chinakhov and adding defenseman Egor Zamula to give the Blue Jackets much-needed depth on the blue line.
The hiring of Bowness has been a season-changer to this point, as the Blue Jackets have won 10 of 11 games under the new head coach to move into a tie for ninth in the Eastern Conference, just four points behind both third place in the Metropolitan Division as well as the final wild card spot.
The Blue Jackets will get back to practice today, then restart the season next week with key games at Boston (Feb. 26) and vs. the New York Islanders (Feb. 28), the two teams they’re chasing in the standings. Then, 17 games follow in March, including just three before the deadline.
BlueJackets.com caught up with Waddell on Tuesday morning for our annual midseason conversation with the CBJ GM to discuss the team’s turnaround under Bowness, how he hopes to attack the trade deadline, and a couple other topics.
BlueJackets.com: You’re someone who has spent a lot of time working with USA Hockey. How fun is it to watch the Olympics and follow what’s going on there?
Waddell: “Of course, I watch every game that I can. Obviously, I watch all the U.S. games, but I try to watch the Latvia games when I can and all the other games. It’s the greatest tournament outside of the NHL playoffs. You bring in the best players in the world for the most part, so it’s exciting to watch. And it’s nerve-wracking, too, because you see Los Angeles lost one of their best players (in Kevin Fiala), so you’re always worried about injuries. You want the best for the guys and for all the teams. I don’t wish injuries on anybody. But it’s exciting to watch. It’s a lot of fun.”
Elvis didn’t have a chance to play much, but with Zach, you watch him and it seems like the moment has not been too big for him. He’s playing the same way he plays for the Blue Jackets. Is it fun to see that on this stage?
“The goal he scored in the last game they played (vs. Germany) was a typical Werenski goal. How many goals do you ever see him score by taking a slapshot? They’re all wrist shots. You don’t see where they’re going. He’s such a smart player. He plays there the same way he plays here. Sometimes you see him make a rush behind the offensive net and the other team comes back and he’s back already because he’s a pure skater. It’s a lot of fun.
“Merzlikins, the first game he plays the two periods against the U.S. and (Latvia) gave up 32 shots and he came out of the game not feeling great. I feel for him because I know he wanted to play more, but it’s one of those things that happened. So the best thing that happened for us is he got a chance to play some games and can come back here and be ready to go.”
Speaking of sports, how was your trip to the Super Bowl?
“Some people say the game wasn’t great, but when you’re in the stands, it’s much different. There’s a lot more emotion in the game, and the atmosphere was tremendous. Usually when I get to go, it’s for a day or two because we’re playing games. Since we were done, getting a couple extra days, we had a lot of fun for sure, and the game was entertaining on our end.”
Is it fun to see sporting events like that?
“I love to go to big events. I’ve been going to the World Series for a few years now. I like to go as a fan and experience it as a fan.”
You don’t get to do that very often in your job, do you?
“Yeah, that’s the thing. I would have loved to have gone to the Daytona 500 and couldn’t make that. I love to go to big events just as a spectator. The Super Bowl has been something I've been doing for a number of years. There’s a couple more big events that I have on my list that I haven’t gotten to yet, but I’ll get there eventually.”
All right, now for some actual hockey questions. The last 11 games, Rick Bowness comes in and you win 10 of them. What's impressed you the most from what you’ve seen since the coaching change?
“Rick came in at a time where our players were looking for more leadership. Everybody coaches differently, just like I say, everybody manages differently. Rick, being that he’s been an assistant coach more than a head coach (in his career), there’s a lot of times the assistant coach’s role is the communication, and you see that in how he’s managed players’ individual meetings, team meetings. He’s a huge communicator. During the break, he’s been texting guys asking how the break is going and all that. I talked to him almost every day during the break because he had ideas of what he wanted to do. He gave all the coaches a task to do during the break, which they’re meeting today on that. But I think the biggest thing from a team standpoint is that they’re looking for that leadership, and Rick brought that in and so far it’s gone very well.”
Has that made your job easier or harder now going into the next couple weeks with the trade deadline approaching?
“Well, three weeks ago before I hired him, I thought the way we were headed, we would be getting lots of assets (at the deadline). But at this point, we battled ourselves (back). We have five games, some big games before the (deadline) here, we’ll continue to monitor those and hopefully come out of this break on a good note and keep it going. Obviously, we’re not going to go 11-1, but we want to keep ourselves in the race here.
“Does it make it harder? It makes it a lot more fun, that’s for sure. It does make it harder. The stress level is probably a little higher than normal. I wear an Oura ring for a reason, to tell me my stress levels for the day. But I’d rather be in this position than the way we were going because at least now we have some good decisions to make. As we get through the next few weeks here, the dust will settle and we’ll see where we’re at and how we move forward.”
It’s gonna happen fast, too, right? Because like you said, it’s just five games, so you’re going to have to make some decisions here and obviously you’re planning for that.
“Yeah, we’re planning for everything. We’re talking to some of the UFAs right now about the future and all that. Those will continue, too, just to get a feel. But if we’re in the playoff mix, I don’t know if that changes our thinking or my thinking. Because you look at it, the one thing we probably won’t do is go out and try to add UFAs at the deadline. You might go around the edges a little bit, but having in particular three forwards that play good roles on our team, to add another (UFA) and give up assets probably doesn’t make sense. If we could trade for somebody that has term that we like going forward, that’s a different value that we look at. We’ll see. All the UFAs right now on our team play a good role for our team, so if you take anybody off, you’re going to have to replace them because of the positions that they play.”
Does it feel kind of similar in some ways to last year?
“Yes and no. Last year, I just felt that everything the team went through and how the guys stuck together – we weren’t as close last year as we are this year, I don’t believe. I don’t remember the standings, but I just felt everything we went through, we owed it to the guys to keep them together, and we just added a little bit around the edges.
“This year, it’s different because we all felt that our team was better than what our record was. I think we’re capable of winning a lot of games, so to me, getting in the playoffs is critically important without mortgaging the future. If you’re talking about trading and picking up a couple draft picks here or there, I have nine draft picks this year. We’re not in a position to do anything to lessen our team at this point. Again, if we trade for somebody that plays a similar role (as the upcoming UFAs) that has term left, that might open up some options, but otherwise these next games are going to be important for us to keep going forward.”
When I said last year, maybe it’s more similar at the deadline in that you have good guys, you have good chemistry and you don’t want to take away from it.
“We have a great locker room. These guys are solid guys, not just on the ice but off the ice. They represent us very well, and they all care. When I met with the senior leadership group before I made a decision (on the coach), they all felt we were a better team than our record. As the GM, the first thing you do is look in the mirror (and ask), ‘Are we not as good as I think we should be?’ That’s the first thing. But then you talk to staff, people here and people around the league and realize maybe we’re not as bad as our record was. And then when you talk to the players and they felt unanimously that we’re a much better team than our record was, that’s when you say, ‘OK, let’s move forward here.’”
And if you look at the season, you haven’t been afraid to make decisions to try to help the team, from the coaching change to the Marchment trade, the Chinakhov trade. You haven’t been afraid to bolster this group, which I think has been important to them. Has that been important to you?
“Yeah. We didn’t trade Chinakhov until we had Marchment, and then once we got Marchment, I kept waiting for Chinakhov hopefully to get a chance and take a step for us. I agree, especially earlier in the year, you can do more to damage your team than good if you’re not careful. I’ve always said the reason you make trades is never personal, it’s always to make your team better. In every case, starting last summer, when we added (Charlie) Coyle and (Miles) Wood, I always felt anything we do is to make our team better.”
With some of the young players, the (Adam) Fantillis and the (Kent) Johnsons, there’s been some ups and downs this year, but do you like the track they continue to be on?
“Yeah. Fantilli, we forget how young he is. He’s three years in the league, 21 years old. I think he’s taken some steps. He has obviously more steps to take. KJ had 24 goals last year and was having trouble scoring (this year) and lost his ice time and all that. I think now his confidence is back. He’s getting more opportunities. I wish pucks would go in for him; he’s hit some goal posts and all that. He’s had one or two goals here and there.
“But that was one of my biggest concerns was our young players. When you make a coaching change, you can’t guarantee wins. You can’t do that. But what I can do, especially in Rick’s case, I knew our young players are going to get better under Rick’s coaching style. I’m not knocking coaching styles, just Rick’s coaching style, maybe being an assistant coach a lot of years, he’s been through these positions before with teaching these young players how to take that next step.”
And that’s obviously very important for the future given the way the roster is assembled.
“100 percent. We talk about the UFAs, we have a lot of good young players that we have to continue to mature and grow as good hockey players because that’s our future.”
When you watch the team under Bowness, obviously it seems like it’s been better defensively. What are the signs you see that you like?
“If you look at just the stats, I think we’re almost a goal against less (given up) and a goal more (scored per game). What I really see is we’re not giving up very many odd-man rushes, very few, and the biggest thing if you look at the stats and analytics is the slot play. We were 28th or 29th in shots given up in the slot, and I think going into the break we are sixth. To me, it’s protecting the house. Rick says it best – you can’t score your way into the playoffs, but you can defend your way into the playoffs. The steps that we’ve taken to clean up our own zone I think have been one of the biggest reasons we’re winning games.”
OK, one more. I didn’t specifically ask earlier, but you talked about the UFAs, and that’s a big piece of what you’re handling. Is that the biggest focus right now?
“That’s the biggest focus only because you want to get an idea of what guys are thinking about going forward. We have a good group of guys here, and if we could sign them all, but there’s salary, and UFAs have earned that right to go to unrestricted free agency. We’re going to touch base with some of our younger players, too, whose contracts are up just to get the ball rolling.
“It doesn’t have to be done. I proved that last year – none of these contracts have to be done now. If you can get a head start on some, that’s great, but otherwise get through the trade deadline and then we know what we have, and then finish as strong as we can and get in the playoffs and we can deal with all of this when the season’s all over.”
