With the Cleveland Monsters’ loss in the round of eight of the AHL playoffs, the 2025-26 season is officially over for the prospects in the Blue Jackets’ organization.
CBJ draft picks and others signed performed near and far, with many skating for the team’s AHL affiliate just up Interstate 71 and others playing across the world in locations like Russia, Finland and Sweden.
The Blue Jackets have graduated a number of their top prospects to the NHL in the past few seasons and traded a few others, but there are still future NHLers that are part of the pipeline and on the way to Columbus.
Here are some standout performances and other notes from the pipeline as we look back at the 2025-26 season.
Three Stars of the Season
F Luca Del Bel Belluz: CBJ fans are certainly familiar with Del Bel Belluz, who has logged 30 NHL games the past three seasons, totaling three goals and 10 points. For the second straight season, Del Bel Belluz was one of the top producers in the AHL, earning All-Star honors with a 22-36-58 line in 55 games. The 2022 second-round pick led the Monsters in scoring on the campaign and was in the top 10 in the AHL before a late-season call-up to Columbus allowed him to get passed in the final weeks. Del Bel Belluz added seven points in nine playoff games, and he’s totaled 49 goals and 111 points in 116 games over the past two campaigns in Cleveland. Now 22, Del Bel Belluz has improved his strength and skating in his time with the Monsters and figures to get a look in Columbus this fall.
D Jackson Smith: The 2025 first-round pick continued to build excitement around his potential, as he used his size, athleticism, skating and offensive abilities to make a big impact in his freshman season at Penn State. Chosen 14th overall in the 2025 draft – the same pick the Blue Jackets own in 2026 – Smith arrived in Happy Valley after an excellent season with Tri-City of the WHL and made an impact with the Nittany Lions. The 6-4, left-shot defenseman logged top-pair minutes at Penn State and finished with fourth among NCAA defensemen in goals (11) and tied for first among freshman blueliners in points (26) this season. The only disappointment is he was one of the last cuts from Canada’s World Juniors roster, but it’s not hard to imagine he’ll be part of that this upcoming winter as he heads back to Penn State for a second season. He’ll continue to clean up his reads and his game like any young defenseman, but Smith has the tools to be a noticeable player at the NHL level.
G Sergei Ivanov: We could have gone a couple different directions with the third star, but why not pick a player from each position for this exercise? The 2022 fifth-round pick doesn’t boast prototypical size for an NHL goalie these days – he's listed at 6-0 – but Ivanov has drawn comparisons to Jet Greaves for his ability to use reads, quickness and reflexes to play bigger than his size. He’s appeared in KHL games each of the past four seasons, totaling a 2.65 GAA and .923 save percentage in 108 games, including a 2.50 GAA and .928 SV% this season in 29 games with SKA St. Petersburg. Goals are harder to come by in the KHL, but Ivanov has shown he can stop pucks in his native country while playing with three different squads. Now 22, Ivanov is out of contract in the KHL and it remains to be seen where he’ll suit up a season from now.
Monsters Make a Run
Playoff hockey returned to Cleveland for the third straight season, and the team’s AHL affiliate also captured a postseason series for the third year in a row.
The Monsters finished third in the AHL North and then downed second-place Syracuse in their opening series, but in Game 5 of the division final Sunday, Toronto rallied with a pair of goals in the last five minutes to win the deciding game and move on.
It was a bitter end, but the Monsters again showed a young, prospect-laden team what high-stakes playoff hockey was like, doing so in front of the usual raucous crowds at Rocket Arena. After averaging 11,530 fans per game during the regular season, third all-time in AHL history, the Monsters welcomed more than 10,000 fans for all five home playoff games.
Despite turnover in the leadership ranks from a season ago, head coach Trent Vogelhuber again built a squad that bonded into a formidable unit throughout the year and continues to show why many believe he’s a rising star in the coaching ranks.
Some notes from Cleveland’s campaign:
- Mikael Pyyhtiä earned praise for his defensive play during the 2024-25 season when he spent 47 games with the Blue Jackets, but he had spurts of being a high scorer in his native Finland and upped his offense this season with the Monsters. The 24-year-old wing blew by his previous AHL career highs in all the major offensive categories, posting a 21-28-49 line in 59 games with 16 multipoint outings, and added three playoff goals as well. He’s another player who might get a long look from the Jackets in training camp.
- Maybe the biggest positive for the Blue Jackets to come from the Monsters’ playoff run was the defensive performance of the team, as Cleveland goalies posted a 2.41 goals-against average in the nine-game postseason schedule. What makes that notable is that four drafted defensive prospects – Guillaume Richard, Corson Ceulemans, Luca Marrelli and Stanislav Svozil – played big minutes during the postseason. Ceulemans had his best season yet in Cleveland, as the 2021 first-round pick made major strides defensively, while Richard’s first pro campaign was impressive as he finished the regular season at plus-20.
- An underrated performer through the season was Jack Williams, a rookie center from Northeastern who was signed by the Blue Jackets last spring. The 24-year-old finished the campaign by playing in all 72 games, posting 15 goals and 38 points as well as four overtime tallies among his six game winners. The four OT goals led the AHL, and Williams seemed to show up when the Monsters needed him most. Vogelhuber raved about his professionalism and consistency late in the campaign, and Williams bears watching as a versatile player who can make an impact at the NHL level.
- The Blue Jackets have seemingly focused on size in the past few drafts, but two smaller players – wings Luca Pinelli and Jordan Dumais – remain intriguing options. A 2023 fourth-round pick, Pinelli had an excellent first season at the AHL level, placing seventh among league rookies with 46 points, including 14 goals. Pinelli made his NHL debut with three games, and his hockey IQ, competitiveness and scoring ability make him a player to watch. Dumais produced at historic levels a few years ago in the QMJHL, and the 2022 third-round pick had a 7-11-18 line while playing in 46 games. Health has been an issue the past few years, but he's still just 22, and Dumais remains someone analysts believe can produce at the pro level as he gains experience.
Around the NCAA
Thanks in part to the rule change that allowed players with CHL experience to jump into college hockey for the first time, 10 players drafted by the Blue Jackets skated in the NCAA this year. We already mentioned the exploits of Smith, but here are a few more notes from around the college ranks.
- We certainly could have included William Whitelaw among the three stars earlier, as the 2023 third-round pick was among the top goal scorers in college hockey throughout the season. After stints at Wisconsin and Michigan, the junior found a home at Western Michigan this past season, posting a 19-15-34 line for the defending national champions in 39 games. His goal total tied for 18th in NCAA hockey, and Whitelaw posted four two-goal games. An 5-9 wing from Minnesota, Whitelaw has scoring ability and plays with a chip on his shoulder.
- Defenseman Tanner Henricks suffered an unfortunate injury at midseason – he missed three months thanks to a hit from his brother, Ty, who plays with Whitelaw at WMU – but he still impressed in 14 games at St. Cloud State. The 6-4 right-shot defenseman, who was taken in the fourth round of the 2025 draft, had three goals and six points and showed good offensive ability for his size as a freshman. He was in the mix for Team USA’s World Juniors squad and could be a solid mid-round find by the Blue Jackets.
- Cayden Lindstrom was the fourth overall pick in the 2024 draft and got back to consistent action this year with Michigan State, posting a 3-7-10 line in 31 games with the Spartans as a freshman while tying for second in college hockey with 94 penalty minutes. He certainly wasn’t afraid to mix it up, perhaps a good sign for a player who missed most of a year and a half with injury. The good news was Lindstrom got games under his belt, and MSU coach Adam Nightengale compared him to Spartans forward Charlie Stramel, a 2023 first-round pick of the Wild who recovered from injury to become a standout. Stramel had just 20 points his first two seasons of college hockey at Wisconsin, then posted 19 goals and 44 points for the Spartans this year as a senior. It just goes to show that sometimes it takes time to knock the rust off after missing so much development time, and the hope is Lindstrom follows a similar track at MSU.
- It wouldn’t be a story about college hockey if the transfer portal wasn’t mentioned, and six of those 10 players entered the portal after the season. Four of the transfers have been confirmed by their new teams, with Henricks heading to Minnesota along with former Michigan State goalie Melvin Strahl (2023 fifth-round pick), defenseman Andrew Strathmann (2024 fourth-round pick) transferring from North Dakota to Quinnipiac, and forward James Fisher (2022 seventh-round pick) going from Northeastern to St. Lawrence. Defenseman Malte Vass (2025 third-round pick) is reportedly heading from Boston University to New Hampshire, while forward Jérémy Loranger (2025 seventh-round pick) is reportedly going from Omaha to UConn.
Strength Between the Pipes
The emergence of Greaves in the CBJ net is certainly a good sign for the organization’s future, and the Blue Jackets’ pipeline between the pipes behind him appears to be strong as well.
We already mentioned Ivanov, but a couple of recent draft picks in 2025 first-rounder Pyotr Andreyanov and 2024 second-round pick Evan Gardner posted solid seasons as well. In his postseason rankings of the top 20 drafted goalie prospects, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked Andreyanov fifth and Ivanov 17th.
The Blue Jackets surprised some by taking Andreyanov with the 20th overall pick in last summer’s draft, but the team believed his athleticism and ability to think the game despite being listed at 6-1. Andreyanov was also coming off a season in which he posted a .942 SV% in Russian junior hockey, and he made his debut with CSKA Moskva’s minor-league squad this year, playing in 13 games with a 2.13 GAA and .918 SV%. He also had 26 games at the junior level, posting a .919 SV%.
Gardner, meanwhile, made his AHL playoff debut for Cleveland with more than 46 minutes of shutout action after completing a decorated junior career with Saskatoon (WHL). Gardner was 25-16-4-2 this year with a 2.96 GAA and .902 save percentage with the Blades, then backstopped the team to a first-round playoff series win. He’s expected to be with Cleveland next season.
Prospect Notes
- Oiva Keskinen appears to be following in the Pyyhtiä track – a couple of standout years in the Finnish Liiga before heading overseas to begin his pro career. The two Finns were productive players in their homeland – Pyyhtiä had a 21-goal season with TPS, while Keskinen had 42 goals and 99 points in three years – with Keskinen winning his second Liiga title with Tappara this season. The 2023 seventh-round pick posted 20-17-37 in 49 games then had a key overtime goal in Tappara’s finals win vs. KooKoo, and he appears headed to join the Blue Jackets organization for the upcoming season after signing with the team last May.
- Two players to keep an eye on are college free agents Josh Eernisse and Boston Buckburger, who each signed with the team after completing their seasons. Eernisse spent the end of the year with Cleveland, skating in one game, after posting 11 goals and 19 points in 38 games with Michigan this past year. A big (6-2) forward, he plays a pro-style game. A defenseman, Buckburger won the national title with Denver, posting 10 goals and 29 points in 43 games to place in the top 10 among NCAA defensemen in both categories, and he was plus-94 over three seasons with the Pioneers.
- Charlie Elick reported to Cleveland at the conclusion of his juniors campaign with Tri-City (WHL) and played two games, posting an assist. The big, athletic, physical defenseman was a second-round pick in 2024 and posted 16 goals and 75 points in 259 career games in the WHL, and he figures to begin next season with Cleveland.
- Forward Owen Griffin also reported to the Monsters at the end of the season but did not play, though the 2025 fifth-round pick posted a solid season with Oshawa of the OHL. One year after leading the league in playoff goals with 16, the 5-10 center set career highs with the Generals, notching 25 goals and 67 points in 66 games.
