James Malatesta put an exclamation point on his junior season Sunday night, joining an exclusive group of Blue Jackets draft picks to win the Memorial Cup.

With his Quebec Remparts posting a 5-0 blanking of Seattle, the Blue Jackets draft pick leaves Kamloops with a trophy and memories to last a lifetime as champion of the Canadian Hockey League junior ranks. 

Blue Jackets forward Cole Sillinger grew up in a golf family, not to mention a competitive family, so he's able to produce some pretty good scores on the links. 

The low 80s score -- he remembers it as an 83, give or take a few shots -- he carded last week at Muirfield Village Golf Club would certainly qualify, as that's a darn good score on a PGA Tour-level track.

There was really no way for Johnny Gaudreau to know what to expect when he arrived in Columbus for his debut season as a Blue Jacket. 

There was the fact it was his first year in an unfamiliar city on a brand-new team, as the All-Star forward spent the first eight full campaigns of his NHL career in Calgary.  

But that paled in comparison to the changes in his family life. Gaudreau and his wife Meredith became parents for the first time with the birth of their daughter Noa just before the start of the season. 

Selin Boztepe was involved in seemingly every organization she could be at Groveport Madison High School, played on the school's volleyball team, and even created some clubs of her own.  

Oh, and she is one of Groveport Madison's valedictorians as well, boasting a grade-point average well above 4.0. 

Yet despite that -- and a few part-time jobs, as typical of a teenager -- she still has found plenty of time to attend Blue Jackets games over the past few years. 

Opportunities like these don't come around very often for such players as James Malatesta. 

A fifth-round pick in the 2021 draft by the Blue Jackets, Malatesta and his Quebec Remparts squad are champions of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, downing Halifax (and fellow CBJ draft pick Jordan Dumais) by a 4-2 final in the championship series. 

The annual worldwide celebration of the sport of hockey is back, and three players with Blue Jackets ties are taking part in the IIHF World Championships.

Forward Alexandre Texier (France) and defensemen Samuel Knazko (Slovakia) and Ole Bjorgvik-Holm (Norway) all took part in the two-week championship of international hockey that began May 12 in Tampere, Finland, and Riga, Latvia.

Unfortunately, all three saw their countries fall short of advancing out of the preliminary round. 

In addition, Tim Berni was on the original roster for the Switzerland team but is yet to play, though reports indicate he remains in Riga as a potential injury replacement. 

Texier, who is set to return to the Blue Jackets this upcoming season after playing a year in Switzerland, took part in the Worlds for the fourth time. Knazko and Bjorgvik-Holm were in their second tournaments.

Knazko made his CBJ debut in the final two games after spending most of the season in Cleveland, while Bjorgvik-Holm is a 2020 fifth-round draft pick of the Jackets who split this year with Cleveland and Kalamazoo of the ECHL. 

There are also CBJ ties off the ice, as Blue Jackets director of player personnel Chris Clark is the general manager of Team USA, and the Americans have Jackets equipment manager Jamie Healy and trainer Chris Strickland on the bench. For the first time ever, the Americans won all their games in the preliminary round and will head into the knockout portion as the top seed in Group A. 

In addition, Blue Jackets director of pro scouting Josef Boumedienne is an assistant general manager for Sweden. 

Games are being shown on NHL Network and ESPN+ for American audiences. 

Ben Musselman was born with spida bifida, as well as the attitude that he was still going to make the most of his life despite the condition. 

Despite the fact he has no feeling below his waist, he'd always been energetic and eager to take on challenges. As he hit 12 years old, someone suggested he should try wheelchair track as a way to compete, in the way kids his age do on Little League teams and soccer squads across the country. 

And, well, it didn't work. But something soon did.  

For one minute and 44 seconds, Stanislav Svozil and his Blue Jackets teammates had one of the best players of all time running around in his own zone.  

Kirill Marchenko set a Blue Jackets rookie record with 21 goals this past season, cementing himself as a key piece Columbus can build around for years to come.  

And yet, Marchenko wasn't happy. 

Experts across the NHL landscape agree the Blue Jackets have one of the most talent-rich prospect pools in the league, which will only get better when Columbus adds the third overall pick in the 2023 NHL draft. 

That means there will be some good players coming to Columbus in the years ahead, many of whom took the next big step forward in their development this season.  

With that in mind, today's Prospect Report takes a look at every player in the CBJ system who didn't spend the majority of their time in Columbus. That's 29 players scattered throughout the world who are working to make it to the NHL and hope to contribute for the Blue Jackets one day.