Right now, it’s the calm before the storm.
In 11 days, the NHL draft will begin. In 16, free agency kicks off. That means in the coming days, the offseason frenzy of teams trying to improve their outlooks for the upcoming season will take place in earnest.
In the meantime, the groundwork is being laid for what should be an entertaining few weeks – at least in the eyes of NHL fans. General managers are the ones putting in the work, feverishly answering phones as they conduct pro and amateur scouting meetings, negotiate with their own free agents and feel out what could be one of the most unpredictable offseason markets of the past few seasons.
“I don’t worry about sleep,” CBJ GM/president of hockey operations Don Waddell said. “We have a lot to do. It’s that time of year where it’s just busy, which is good. Busy is good.”
So how will Waddell attack getting the Blue Jackets over the hump after the squad fell just short of making the playoffs each of the past two seasons, extending the team’s streak without postseason hockey to six years?
Two of the biggest things on Waddell’s offseason to-do list have already been accomplished. Head coach Rick Bowness inked a contract to return for the 2026-27 season shortly after the campaign ended, bringing back a popular – and passionate – leader who pushed the team from last place in January to the playoff mix this spring.
Unrestricted free agent-to-be Charlie Coyle then signed a six-year contract in early May, as the veteran center who became a reliable jack-of-all-trades and locker room leader in his first season with the team chose not to hit the open market.
So what’s next for Waddell? He remains in negotiations with agents for his top free agents, including UFAs-to-be Boone Jenner, Erik Gudbranson and Mason Marchment as well as restricted free agents Adam Fantilli, Jet Greaves and Cole Sillinger.
And when he looks to how he’d like to bolster his club from the outside, the biggest answer comes down to adding to a forward group that struggled to score goals down the stretch.
“We’d really like to add to our top-nine group if possible,” Waddell said late last week. “The UFA market is not strong this summer with all the teams having cap space and signing their own players, so it would be through a trade. We just had pro meetings the last two days and got a lot of names, and I have a lot of phone calls to make to see who might be available and what teams are willing to do something.”
READ MORE: Blue Jackets offseason roster breakdown
Indeed, free agency isn’t what it once was, as many of the top players who were set to hit the open market this summer have inked deals to remain with their squads thanks to the rising cap. That makes the trade market all the more crucial, and Waddell dipped into it a summer ago to add Coyle and Miles Wood up front.
While teams continue to feel each other out before the moves begin, Waddell said few teams are in true “sell” mode, and most are looking for the same help up front.
“Thirty-two teams are going into the summer saying they all want to make the playoffs next year,” said Waddell, who previously spent six seasons with a Carolina franchise that just hoisted the Stanley Cup. “No teams are saying, ‘OK, I’m out this year.’ Everybody is trying to do the same thing to improve their team.
"But sometimes you can find the fit where somebody is not fitting in with somebody else that they’re willing to part with. The biggest thing, I keep a book every day of my call log and who I talked to and who’s available and all that. You gotta stay on the phones. You never know.”
With that in mind, Waddell acknowledged that he isn't against putting the Jackets' first-round draft pick, set for 14th overall when the draft begins June 26, on the market in an effort to facilitate deals.
“We would put that in play if it helped us get a good player this year,” he said. “I feel like we have a pretty good pool of prospects right now. ... We have some guys in Cleveland that 100 percent deserve an opportunity to play on this team next year. We’re in pretty good shape, so if we have to give up a pick or a prospect, it’s something we’ll have to look at.”
Were the Jackets to keep the pick, players who have been ranked around No. 14 include Windsor (OHL) wing Ethan Belchetz, a power forward who has said he models his game after Rick Nash; Boston College wing Oscar Hemming, a Finn who also brings size to the table; and Vancouver (WHL) defenseman Ryan Lin, who topped a point per game this season.
When it comes to the team’s own free agents, Waddell remains confident that signing the restricted free agents will be done in due time and doesn’t expect any potential offer sheets to trouble the Blue Jackets.
On the UFA front, Waddell is also content to wait to see how things shake out after saying at the end of the season there was mutual interest between the team and the trio of Jenner, Gudbranson and Marchment. A year ago, the Blue Jackets signed defensemen Ivan Provorov and Dante Fabbro – both set to hit the open market – in the hours leading up to July 1, and it could be a similar process this summer.
“I’ve talked to all the agents and I know where they’re at and they know where I’m at,” Waddell said. “There’s a difference, of course, which you always expect. I don’t know how it’s going to play out in the next couple weeks. If you remember, we signed Provorov and Fabbro the night before July 1, so when reality sets in for both sides, it takes two sides to make a deal.”
There’s also the fact that perhaps the biggest potential improvement for the Blue Jackets will come from within given how the team has built around draft picks in recent seasons.
Talented young forwards Kent Johnson and Dmitri Voronkov combined for 47 goals two seasons ago but just 24 last year, and both were healthy scratches at times down the stretch, so getting those two players back to their previous production will be imperative. There is also reason to believe such players as Fantilli, Sillinger, Kirill Marchenko and Denton Mateychuk are still just scratching the surface of what they’re capable of.
And as Waddell hinted earlier, next year also could bring infusion of talent from the AHL. Such prospects as Luca Del Bel Belluz, Mikael Pyyhtiä, Jack Williams, Guillaume Richard and Corson Ceulemans were key pieces of a Cleveland team that came within one game of the AHL’s final four this year, and Waddell was a keen observer of the team’s playoff run. He left that group believing there are players already in the system who can be contributors right now.
“Playoff hockey is hard,” Waddell said. “I don’t care what level you’re playing at. When you get in the playoffs, it’s hard hockey, and we had some guys that really took a step forward – some of the young guys, and it was real encouraging. We had meetings today where there’s probably at least three guys right now that should be competing for jobs on our team. Now, whether we have that many spots open, we’ll at least feel like we have guys that are going to play games next year in the NHL.”
It’s all part of what Waddell calls a jigsaw puzzle, especially as he has to balance the upcoming season with the salary cap and the team’s long-term planning. Still, the GM remains confident that with cap space, an attractive first-round pick and a prospect pool he likes, he can make something happen to improve the Blue Jackets going into 2026-27.
“Our goal is to be better than we were last year, and our goal is to get into the playoffs for sure,” Waddell said. “Anything that gets proposed to us, we’ll take a hard look at it, and whatever we propose to somebody else, the same.
“I truly believe we’ll be able to do something. I’m not sure what that will be just yet, but I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to do something.”
