By the numbers: A look at the 2023-24 season for the Blue Jackets

In the end, the number that will truly matter from the 2023-24 hockey season is 16 – the Blue Jackets finished 16th of 16 teams in the Eastern Conference this season with a 27-43-12 record.

The standings don’t lie, making the recently concluded campaign – the fourth in a row without playoff hockey – a disappointing one for the Blue Jackets.

But if there’s good news, it’s that with the team in the midst of a rebuild, many of the team’s young players – whom the organization hopes will be the stars of tomorrow – took significant steps forward this season. In addition, veteran leaders Zach Werenski, Boone Jenner and Johnny Gaudreau turned in notable seasons of their own.

And through an 82-game season, the old adage that you might see something you’ve never seen before at a game proved true – franchise and league history were made a handful of times this season thanks to notable accomplishments by the Blue Jackets.

With that in mind, here's a look at the 2023-24 season by the numbers.

8

Listing all of the stats that stood out for Zach Werenski might take a while, but here goes. With a four-point night in the season finale vs. Carolina, Werenski reached a career-high 57 points on the year, tying Seth Jones’ single-season record for a CBJ defenseman. Werenski’s 46 assists also set a new CBJ mark for a blueliner, and he passed the 300-point mark for his career in the season finale. With 11 goals, Werenski now has six seasons with double-digit tallies, as many as every other CBJ defenseman in franchise history combined. With 212 career helpers, he’s second all-time in the team record book, and his 302 points are sixth. In addition, his 90 goals in the eight seasons since his NHL debut are seventh among league defensemen in the time span behind only Roman Josi, Brent Burns, Dougie Hamilton, Victor Hedman, John Carlson and Alex Pietrangelo.

715

Captain Boone Jenner not only became the longest-tenured CBJ player ever this year – he's the first Jacket to reach 11 seasons with the club – he also broke Rick Nash’s career record for games played. Jenner blew by Nash’s mark of 674 games in November and finished the year with 715 games played over those 11 campaigns. He’s also now third in team history in goals scored (192), seventh in assists (172) and third in points (364).

38

We’ll use Boone Jenner’s uniform number here to highlight a couple of notable goals the captain scored this season. His tally 15 seconds into the March 14 game vs. Ottawa was the sixth fastest goal to begin a game in team history, while his goal at 19:47 of the third period to break a 3-3 tie Feb. 17 at San Jose goes down as the second latest regulation game winner in CBJ annals. With 22 goals on the year, he’s tied for third in team history with R.J. Umberger with four 20-goal seasons, trailing only Rick Nash (eight) and Cam Atkinson (six).

48

A year after a 53-assist debut season with the Blue Jackets, Johnny Gaudreau followed up with 48 helpers, giving him 101 in his two-year CBJ tenure. While he finished just shy of joining Artemi Panarin as the only players to have multiple 50-assist seasons in their CBJ tenure, he’s one of just four players to have two 40-assists campaigns in Union Blue, joining Panarin, Ray Whitney and David Vyborny.

34

The future looks bright for Columbus, and one reason is the number 34. Players classified as rookies by the NHL scored 34 goals for the Blue Jackets, tied with Minnesota for the most in the league. The Jackets also had a total of 78 points from rookies, fifth in the NHL. It marked the second straight season Columbus was in the top five of both categories.

18

Dmitri Voronkov burst onto the scene quickly, becoming one of only three players in team history with six points in his first eight NHL games with the club. By the end of the season, the big Russian forward had 18 goals, a total that ranks third all-time for rookies in team history. In addition, he placed fifth among NHL rookies in goals, tied for eighth with 34 points and first in the league with six power-play goals.

20

Kirill Marchenko may have thought he fell victim to a sophomore slump, but with 23 goals, he made a bit of franchise history this year. After posting 21 tallies to set the CBJ rookie record a year ago, Marchenko passed the 20-goal mark again to join Pierre-Luc Dubois as one of just two players in team history to have back-to-back 20-goal seaosns to start their NHL careers.

30

It’s easy to forget just how young Cole Sillinger is given he’s played three full seasons with the Blue Jackets. In that time, he’s scored 32 goals, making him the third player in team history to record 30 career goals prior to his 21st birthday. The others? Rick Nash (58) and Pierre-Luc Dubois (47).

11

Alex Nylander needed no time to become comfortable in a CBJ jersey, often talking about how quickly he fit in with the team on and off the ice after being acquired in a late-February trade with Pittsburgh. On the ice, he scored 11 times in 23 games with the team, the most ever for a Blue Jackets player in their first 23 contests with the team. Nylander edges Jeff Carter (2011) and Sam Gagner (2016), who each scored 10 such goals to start their CBJ careers.

6

Welcome to the NHL! We can say that to six players this season, as Adam Fantilli, Dmitri Voronkov, Cameron Butler, James Malatesta, Gavin Brindley and Luca Del Bel Belluz all made their debuts in the big leagues this season. That makes 133 NHL debuts in CBJ history, including 17 over the past two seasons.

1

It took just one shot and 3:37 of game play for Luca Del Bel Belluz to score in his NHL debut in the season finale for the Blue Jackets. He became just the eighth player among the 119 skaters to make their NHL debuts with the Jackets to tally in his first game and the fourth to do so in the first period, joining David Vyborny, Jakub Voracek and Nikita Filatov. Del Bel Belluz’s goal was the quickest to come in a game, though, and he had just 19 seconds of ice time before putting the puck past Carolina goalie Spencer Martin.

0

Adam Boqvist certainly is a gentleman. The CBJ defenseman played 35 games and had zero penalty minutes, a rare accomplishment. Boqvist became just the second CBJ player in team history to play in at least 30 games and have zero penalty minutes, joining Mark Letestu, who skated in 54 games in 2014-15 without a penalty. Boqvist was one of just three NHL players this season to play in at least 35 games with zero PIM and one of 17 players over the past 10 seasons.

2

Ivan Provorov posted a pair of notable accomplishments this season in his first campaign with the Blue Jackets. On Jan. 13, he became the first player in team history to score two goals on his birthday during a loss to Seattle. Provorov was also the only CBJ player this season to skate in all 82 games, marking the 39th time in team history a Blue Jacket played 82 contests and the first since Gus Nyquist and Andrew Peeke did in 2021-22.

4

The Blue Jackets’ Russian line of Yegor Chinakhov, Dmitri Voronkov and Kirill Marchenko caught the attention of fans when it was paired together at times during the season. The trio’s biggest accomplishment might have come Nov. 27, as all three scored goals in a 5-2 win over Boston. Add in defenseman Ivan Provorov’s goal and it marked the first time ever four different Russian-born players had scored for the same NHL team in a game.

50

Columbus had four hat tricks on the year, getting three-goal games from Boone Jenner, Kirill Marchenko, Cole Sillinger and Alex Nylander. Nylander’s hat trick March 4 served as the 50th hat trick in team history, and he became the 30th player in CBJ colors to have one.

5

Five was the magic number for the Blue Jackets on the season. Columbus won every game this season when scoring at least five goals, going 14-0 in such situations.

15

Columbus fans showed up in droves to support the Blue Jackets this year, selling out 15 home dates on the season. In all, the team’s total attendance of 697,667 and its average crowd of 17,016 fans were both the best since the 2003-04 season. In all, it was the fifth highest attendance in franchise history.

9

The Blue Jackets’ strength this year was scoring goals, and they certainly showed that in a Dec. 19 game at Buffalo. CBJ fans were given an early Christmas present as the Blue Jackets raced to a 9-4 victory over the Sabres in a game in which the team scored the second most goals in franchise history. Kirill Marchenko had a hat trick while Johnny Gaudreau also had three points and eight other players had two-point nights.

42

One year after a myraid of injuries forced the Blue Jackets to dress a franchise-record 47 different players, Columbus iced 42 different players in 2023-24. There was an improvement from a year ago on the injury front, when the team set a franchise record with 563 man-games lost to injury. This year, a total of 327 man-games were lost.

5

Five University of Michigan products – Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, Zach Werenski, Nick Blankenburg and Gavin Brindley – suited up for the Blue Jackets throughout the season, including a little history Dec. 7 at the New York Islanders. In that contest, Fantilli, Johnson, Werenski and Blankenburg skated together, marking the first time ever that four Wolverine alums were on the ice for the same team in an NHL game.

20

After 20 years and more than 1,500 games as the play-by-play man for the team’s television broadcasts, Jeff Rimer called it a career, calling his final game in the season finale vs. Carolina. Rimer spent 48 years in the hockey industry, doing play-by-play for the Washington Capitals and Florida Panthers before coming to Columbus and taking over during the 2003-04 season.