Are you ready for some hockey? The Blue Jackets begin the season Thursday at Nationwide Arena against Philadelphia, there’s some reason for optimism as the opener nears. If you’ve missed anything this offseason and ready to get caught up, check out our season preview; scroll down for what’s new, what’s old, stats to know, breakout candidates and keys to a successful CBJ campaign.
There’s no sugarcoating it – last season was a miserable experience for the Blue Jackets.
Coming off a surprising 2021-22 season in which a young squad stayed on the fringes of the playoff race into the spring, Columbus got off to a tough start last year and never recovered on the way to the second worst season by points percentage in team history. It felt like anything that could go wrong did go wrong, as injuries, frustration and losses piled up, and at the end of the season, head coach Brad Larsen was relieved of his duties.
“It was hell,” said Pascal Vincent, the associate head coach on last year’s squad. “The NHL will humble you in no time.”
Now, with the 23rd season of Blue Jackets hockey set to begin in three days, Vincent is the man in charge and has eyes on a turnaround. Elevated to the head coaching job just before training camp, the 52-year-old Montreal native has gotten to work in an effort to try to put together an organized, united hockey club.
Not to mention one that won’t be lacking motivation.
“It’s important to remember how you felt last year,” Vincent said. “You don’t want to go back to a place where by Christmastime you know you’re not going to make the playoffs – or maybe even before. Yes, the injuries were something I haven’t seen my whole life. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen again. But we need to remember how we felt. Because it sucked – big time.”
One area Vincent remains encouraged is the fact the Blue Jackets, despite all the adversity and challenges a season ago, did not splinter. While it was no fun to go through one of the most difficult seasons in team history, the Blue Jackets got through it together – and remain that way.
“What I’ve learned is the room is solid,” Vincent said. “We have good people in the room, and that’s step one. We can have the 23 best players in the world, but if they’re not good people, you’re not going to win. In pro sports, you need a core group that is constructed of solid people first before the athlete, and we have that. We have a good leadership group.”
On the ice, the biggest adjustment for the Blue Jackets under Vincent through training camp has been clear communication on the team’s objectives, and the biggest one of those is shoring up a defense that gave up the most goals in franchise history a season ago.
Vincent said the team would attack it through personnel additions, using analytics to identify key markers of winning teams, and then focusing on teaching points in practice. For a veteran like Sean Kuraly, structure is key, and the Blue Jackets have embraced that in camp.
“It will be really clear,” Kuraly said. “Players, we love a clear objective. We love a clear message. And we want to win games, so when we’re watching tape and you can tell me, ‘I did this wrong, I have to do this different the next time,’ and I do it the next time and it works out better for us, we’re all happy.”
NHL observers remain unconvinced, though, after Columbus finished 31st of 32 teams in the league a season ago. While there has been praise for the squad’s long-term hopes, with a number of observers ranking the team’s prospect pool among the best in the league, most prognosticators have the Blue Jackets remaining out of contention for the playoff hunt for the fourth year in a row.
Time will tell, but the Blue Jackets go into the season with confidence.
“As camp has gone along here, I think we’ve put in a lot of good work, a lot of good battles,” captain Boone Jenner said. “We’ve been working on our game quite a bit. We’ve been working on the systems every day. It seems to get better every day, and we’re going to keep ramping it up.”
What’s New For 2023
This list starts at the top with Vincent, who is already drawing strong reviews from his players after taking over last month.
The team’s associate head coach the past two seasons, he has extensive experience, including 12 years as a head coach in the QMJHL and five as a head coach in the AHL. He knows success, too, including winning coach of the year awards in 2008 with Cape Breton in the Q and 2018 with Manitoba of the AHL.
In his time with the Blue Jackets, Vincent has developed a reputation as a sharp hockey mind, a clear communicator and a man of high character.
“He’s ready for it,” Jenner said. “Anyone that knows Pazzy knows that we are going to be prepared. He’s the kind of guy that’s been prepared, puts the work in. He had a plan for us from day one. We’ve seen that. Obviously his role has changed – on the bench, he’s the head coach, he’s not the associate coach anymore, but we all know him from the past couple of years. He has a very smart hockey mind and is a hard worker. I think it’s been great so far.”
On the ice, the Blue Jackets have added a number of players who could be major contributors, starting on the back end with the acquisitions of Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson. The veteran blueliners bring dependability, experience and skill to the table; Provorov posted a 6-21-27 line while playing all 82 games a season ago with Philadelphia, while Severson had a 7-26-33 mark while skating in 81 contests with New Jersey.
Up front, the biggest addition is Adam Fantilli, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 draft who appears set to make the roster. A center who will turn 19 years of age on opening night, Fantilli dominated college hockey a year ago, becoming just the third freshman ever to win the Hobey Baker Award while posting a 30-35-65 line in 36 games. He’s already shown some skill and figures to adjust to the NHL level throughout the season.
Columbus also welcomes back Alexandre Texier, a solid two-way player who was coming into his own two seasons ago before spending last season in Europe. 2019 draft pick Dmitri Voronkov comes over from Russia and adds some major size to the equation as well.
There could also be some help throughout the season from that highly rated prospect pool, as the Blue Jackets’ solid drafting the past few years has the organization filled at the seams with young talent.
“We have added quality players to our team, and we have built a deep and talented group of prospects,” president of hockey operations John Davidson said. “We are excited about this team and where we are headed.”
What’s Coming Back
There will still be plenty of familiar faces to CBJ fans, though, as the Blue Jackets bring back 13 of the team’s top 14 point scorers from a season ago. As exciting as the future is, leaders like Jenner, alternate captain Zach Werenski and veterans Patrik Laine, Johnny Gaudreau, Jack Roslovic, Sean Kuraly and Erik Gudbranson will be a key part of the season as well.
Laine has created a fair amount of preseason buzz with his switch from wing to center, but just as notable has been a step forward in leadership that saw him take Fantilli under his wing, including inviting the rookie to stay with him for a few weeks this summer. One of hockey’s best snipers, Laine posted 48 goals and 108 points in 111 games the past two seasons and appears in good form going into the season after a productive exhibition campaign.
Gaudreau, meanwhile, is a mainstay in the lineup for both the Blue Jackets and in the NHL All-Star Game, as he made his seventh appearance a season ago. One of the most consistent point producers in the league – he has 683 in 682 career games – he led the Blue Jackets a year ago with 74 points.
Werenski will be welcomed back after the two-time All-Star defenseman played just 13 games in 2022-23 before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. One of the keys to the blue line, he boasts scoring ability – he led NHL blueliners with 20 goals in 2019-20 – as well as strong defensive instincts and will again wear the “A” on his sweater.
Jenner (45 points) and Roslovic (44) will add some scoring punch to the forward group, while the Blue Jackets remain excited about the growth of youngsters Kirill Marchenko (23 years old) and Kent Johnson (20), who helped rewrite the CBJ rookie record book a year ago. Marchenko’s 21 goals were the most in franchise history for a first-year player, while Johnson’s 16-24-40 line placed him tied for fifth in goals and third in points among CBJ rookies.
Defensively, a bevy of names CBJ fans will know return, including Andrew Peeke, who has missed just two games the past two seasons; Adam Boqvist, who had 24 points in 46 games; Gudbranson, who brings toughness and experience; and Nick Blankenburg, who has become a fan favorite for his hard-nosed style of play.
And in net, Elvis Merzlikins is back after a tough season, but the goalie has posted some excellent seasons in union blue and worked all offseason to be ready after playing just 30 contests a season ago.
Stats To Know
- Laine is coming off a dominant preseason in which his 4-4-8 line placed him tied for second among points scorers in the NHL and tied for fourth in goals. He also showed well in four preseason games at center, as with Laine on the ice at 5-on-5 in that span, Columbus outscored teams 6-0 and had a 29-12 edge in shots on goal, per Natural Stat Trick.
- With his 74 points last season, Gaudreau placed fifth all-time in team single-season annals, and he became just the fourth CBJ player to have at least 50 helpers in a season. Gaudreau finished his first season in union blue with 20 multipoint games, third all-time in team history, and his five-point game March 14 at San Jose was the sixth in team history.
- Marchenko posted 21 goals to reset the team's rookie goal-scoring record, passing Pierre-Luc Dubois' mark of 20 set in 2017-18. Even more impressive is the fact Marchenko did it in 59 games, while Dubois needed all 82 to reach the 20-goal mark. With four assists, he also became the only CBJ player in history to score at least 15 times in a season with less than 10 helpers.
- Jenner continued to move up the team records books last season, finishing the year with 657 games played, just 17 behind Rick Nash for the most in team history. He is set to become the first player in team history to skate in 11 different seasons on opening night. With a team-high 26 goals last year, he joined Nash, David Vyborny, R.J. Umberger, Cam Atkinson and Oliver Bjorkstrand as the only Blue Jackets with three or more 20-goal seasons.
- Columbus is coming off a season in which the team iced 20 players defined by the NHL as rookies. Those rookies combined to post 55 goals, 65 assists and 120 points, all CBJ team records. Those 55 goals by rookies were the most in the NHL last year, and the point total placed second to Montreal.
- Thanks in part to a team-record 563 man-games lost to injury, the Blue Jackets skated a team-record 47 players a year ago. A full thirty-seven of them remain in the organization.
- Columbus sold out 14 games in Nationwide Arena last year, including eight of the last nine.
3 Notable Storylines
- How do the young players grow? We said this exact thing at this time a year ago, and Marchenko and Johnson proved to be major building blocks for the organization after their breakouts last season. Those two should continue to improve, but there’s a bevy of similarly talented players on the way. Could Fantilli, forward Cole Sillinger or defenseman David Jiricek open some eyes this year with big performances?
- Does Laine work at center? The storyline of the preseason was the move of Laine from his spot on the wing to the center position, where the Blue Jackets think his size, puck-carrying abilities and defensive reads can fit. It worked well in preseason, but consistency will be key. If he can play in the middle for the duration of an NHL campaign, it changes the look of the CBJ up front.
- Are they better defensively? Just about everything has to be better for the Blue Jackets to keep the puck out of the net. The team has to be healthier, the structure on the ice has to be better, and the goalies need to stop more pucks. It’s a big ask, but it was a focus of the coaching staff in the preseason. Simply put, there has to be growth in this area for the Jackets to contend.
3 Breakout Candidates
- Fantilli: Well, what would you expect out of the third overall pick? It’s difficult for teenagers to make an impact in the NHL, but the soon-to-be 19-year-old is no normal youngster. One of the top prospects in the game, Fantilli can impact a game in so many ways, from his size and smarts to his quick release and his scoring ability to his physical nature.
- Johnson: This kind of depends how you define breakout, as Johnson was not only one of the top rookie scorers in the NHL last year, he had one of the best rookie seasons in CBJ history. But it feels like there’s more in there, and the 2021 first-round pick could become one of the must-see players in the league this year thanks to his offensive creativity.
- Jiricek: He might not make the season-opening roster, but it feels like he’s the next big thing on the Columbus blue line. The No. 6 overall pick in the 2022 draft has size and can excel in both zones, but he has to get more experience at 19 years old. He aced his time in the AHL last year and could be a big part of the team by the end of the season.
3 Important Players
- Laine: The Finnish forward is one of the top goal-scoring threats in the league and has shown the ability to fill up the net on the wing, but he hasn’t shied away from the fact he wants to play center at the top level. You can see how he might excel there based on how well it went during the preseason, but the true proof will be in the pudding as the season goes by.
- Adam Boqvist: The Swedish blueliner has shown he can be a major offensive producer, as his point production at 5-on-5 and on the power play the past two years has been impressive. But his ability to stay healthy and also excel in the defensive zone remain question marks; if he can prove to be a consistent impact player on the right side of the defense, it puts a lot of things into place for this team.
- Merzlikins: Coming off the toughest season of his career, Merzlikins might just be the key to the season. He has talent and has posted some impressive days in CBJ colors, and the good news is there’s not necessarily carryover from one year to the next at the goaltending position; a bounceback year would go a long way when it comes to pushing the Blue Jackets into contention.
