The Blue Jackets begin the season Thursday at Minnesota, and it's been a busy offseason in Columbus. From new players to new management, if you’ve missed anything and are ready to get caught up, check out our season preview; scroll down for what’s new, what’s old, stats to know, and much more.
After the Blue Jackets’ first preseason game, Dean Evason wasn’t the happiest of campers.
It wasn’t just that the Blue Jackets lost by a 6-1 score in Buffalo, it was that his new team didn’t play with the attacking, confident style that he’s trying to drill into his squad.
It was just game one, after all, but Evason’s mandate since arriving has been clear – the Blue Jackets will work hard, and they will make it a long 60 minutes for the opposing team.
“That’s how we want to play,” Evason said. “Our system, the Columbus Blue Jackets’ system, is aggressive, it’s in your face, it’s putting pressure on you in all areas of the ice.”
SEASON PREVIEW STORIES: Evason ready to lead | Youngsters ready for more | Meet the Jackets
The good news is that as the eight-game preseason slate carried on, the head coach started to see that more and more in his players. Coming off a tenure in which he led Minnesota to the playoffs four times, Evason left training camp feeling like the Blue Jackets made excellent progress in picking up what his staff wants, building depth and being accountable to one another.
And it starts with a promise from the head coach – the Blue Jackets will bring their lunchpails every day, delivering an honest night’s work for the Fifth Liners in attendance.
“(I want) work,” the 25-year coaching veteran said. “Simply work. Everybody has a different skill set, right? Some guys are going to have this skill set that they're going to have a better opportunity to score goals. Some guys have a skill set where they're going to block shots. Some pass the puck a little better and skate a little better.
“But we want to see them all work and compete every single day. If it's practice, if it's a drill, if it's a game, if it's in the locker room or in the weight room, just work and just compete and give yourself that best opportunity to have success, and not individually, but give your team the opportunity to have success. And our work ethic is really high."
Of course, in many ways, that’s to be expected. It always is in hockey, but it takes on a new importance with all that’s new in Columbus, as the Blue Jackets not only have a new head coach in Evason, but a new head of hockey operations in Don Waddell. Add in seven new players on the opening 23-man roster from a season ago and it’s fair to say there is a different vibe as the Blue Jackets work to try to end a four-year postseason drought.
Expecting a major jump in the standings might be a difficult order, but the Blue Jackets feel they have the chance to make notable progress this season. There’s a core of veterans who have established a close-knit locker room, a young core of talented players who have experience and can help the team take the next step, and a leadership group that has plenty of NHL experience and built a strong leadership culture.
“I think whenever you go into a season, you have the same expectations,” alternate captain Zach Werenski said. “Everyone wants to make the playoffs. I think for us, where we’re at now, it comes from within our room, as a group and as a team. We have to take steps forward – every guy individually and as a team. From goalies to defensemen to forwards, every player has to be better in our room. Those are the expectations and standards that we want to set.”
As the Blue Jackets get ready to embark on their 24th season of hockey, the groundwork has been laid for the team to make steps in their progression. The rebuild that began in earnest in the summer of 2021 has yielded a ton of talent, and the Blue Jackets have started to build expectations from within.
“Our ultimate goal is to push and be playing hockey after the last game of the season and doing it in the playoffs,” forward Cole Sillinger said. “To do that, we’re going to need to take the next step and hold each other accountable a little bit more and take a little bit more weight in our direction as well. It’s something we know. It’s something we’ve talked about. That’s the expectation for us.”
What’s New For 2024
As we noted in the intro, seven players – forwards Zach Aston-Reese, Dylan Gambrell, Kevin Labanc, Sean Monahan and James van Riemsdyk as well as defensemen Jordan Harris and Jack Johnson – are on the season-opening roster that weren’t with the organization a season ago.
Monahan was the biggest acquisition of them all, signing a five-year contract to come in and serve as a big piece of the puzzle at center. An 11-year NHL veteran, Monahan has averaged around 25 goals and 60 points per 82 games in his career and is one of the best faceoff men in the game, and he should provide stability and leadership at the top of the lineup.
Van Riemsdyk and Johnson were brought in to add more experience to the squad, as each has played more than 1,000 games at the NHL level. Both were major contributors on playoff teams a season ago, as van Riemsdyk totaled 38 points with Boston and Johnson skated in 80 games on the Colorado blue line.
Harris was acquired in the trade that sent Patrik Laine to Montreal, and the young defenseman feels like he’s coming into his own in the league. Aston-Reese, Gambrell and Labanc will provide depth to the forward unit as well.
Among rookies, forward Gavin Brindley and defenseman Denton Mateychuk both enter their first seasons in pro hockey, though Brindley (finger) will begin the season on injured reserve. One of the top prospects in the game, Mateychuk was one of the last cuts and went to Cleveland this weekend, but the dynamic 20-year-old seems likely to be wearing CBJ colors sooner rather than later.
What’s Back
While the offseason acquisitions by Waddell addressed a few needs – bringing experience and size to the roster while fortifying the center position – there are still plenty of familiar faces in union blue.
The entire leadership group of captain Boone Jenner and alternates Werenski, Sean Kuraly and Erik Gudbranson returns, though Jenner was placed on injured reserve Monday with an upper-body injury. Those veterans – along with such names as Mathieu Olivier, Damon Severson, Ivan Provorov and Elvis Merzlikins – have helped develop the close nature in the locker room that has impressed Evason to this point.
Then there’s the young core, as Kirill Marchenko, Dmitri Voronkov, Yegor Chinakhov, Sillinger, Kent Johnson, David Jiricek and Adam Fantilli are all under the age of 25 and have gained extensive experience at the NHL level the past few seasons. All but Voronkov were top-50 selections in the draft, and the progress made by those talented youngsters will be one of the major stories of the season.
Unfortunately, the injury bug is also quite familiar to Blue Jackets fans, as the team was wracked by injuries each of the past two seasons. It hit hard in the last week, as Brindley, Jenner and Voronkov joined Justin Danforth on the injured list, and all will begin the season out of commission.
Breaking Down The Units
Offense: The Blue Jackets placed 24th in the NHL in scoring a season ago, posting 2.85 goals per game. Eight of the 11 players to notch double digits in goals – led by Marchenko’s 23 – return, though three of them begin the season out with injury in Jenner, Voronkov and Danforth. The addition of Monahan should help, and the Blue Jackets will hope for Marchenko (23 goals in 2023-24), Chinakhov (16), Sillinger (13), Fantilli (12) and Johnson (6) to continue to keep making steps forward.
Defense: Columbus was 31st of 32 NHL teams last year defensively, allowing 3.63 tallies per game. That’s been a sore spot for the past three seasons, and making improvements here will be imperative for Evason and his staff. The hope is playing that turnover-causing style and preaching structure in a black-and-white fashion will help, while the Blue Jackets also have some more stability in the back end as Gudbranson, Severson and Provorov now have multiple years in Columbus under their belts.
Special Teams: Columbus’ power play struggled again a year ago, placing 31st in the NHL at 15.1 percent, while the penalty kill fell to 25th in the league at 76.3 percent after a strong start. The power play has been a major focus of camp under Evason, with the team practicing it nearly every day. In many ways, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Goaltending: The names are familiar, with Elvis Merzlikins and Daniil Tarasov returning to the net. Both have had excellent moments and bouts with inconsistency in their CBJ tenures, but the Blue Jackets believe in each. Getting strong performances in net – especially if the defensive structure improves – would go a long way toward success for the coming season.
Stats To Know
- Werenski is coming off one of the best seasons in CBJ history, setting a franchise record for assists for a defenseman (46) and tying the mark for most points (57) in a season. With 11 goals, Werenski now has six seasons with double-digit tallies, as many as every other CBJ defenseman in franchise history combined.
- In addition, Werenski’s 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.
- Players classified as rookies by the NHL scored 34 goals for the Blue Jackets a season ago, 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.
- It’s easy to forget just how young Sillinger is given he’s played three full seasons with the Blue Jackets, and his 220 games played are most among NHLers from the 2021 draft. In that time, he’s scored 32 goals, making him the third player in team history after Rick Nash and Pierre-Luc Dubois to record 30 career goals prior to his 21st birthday.
- Columbus fans showed up in droves to support the Blue Jackets last 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.
- Notes on the new guys: Monahan, van Riemsdyk and Jack Johnson have a combined 44 seasons and 2,962 NHL games under their belts. ... Monahan has eight 20-goal seasons in the NHL. ... He’s also won 54.3 percent of his faceoffs the past three campaigns. ... van Riemsdyk has scored at least 10 goals in all 15 seasons of his NHL career. ... Johnson’s 1,187 NHL games are 11th among active players, and his 445 games played for Columbus from 2012-18 are fifth all-time among CBJ defensemen.
- Milestones on tap: Monahan is six goals short of 250 and six assists shy of 300 for his NHL career. ... Werenski is 10 goals from becoming the first CBJ defenseman in franchise history with 100 career tallies. ... With 212 career assists, the defenseman is also within shouting distance of Rick Nash’s CBJ record of 258 helpers.
3 Big Questions
Do the youngsters jump forward? They say they’re ready, and the reality is it might just be time for the members of the CBJ youth brigade to do so. We detailed where the youth movement stands in this article earlier this week (see above), but a bevy of talented high draft picks have gained NHL experience the past few years. How far they continue to progress this year will be the story of the season.
Can they be better defensively? The three worst defensive seasons in team history have been the last three; yes, not even the expansion editions of the Jackets gave up as many goals as the recent vintages. Evason comes in with a pledge of hard work and responsibility, and the Blue Jackets will be a much more competitive team if they can fix the issues with defensive structure that have plagued them in recent seasons.
What impact does the new staff have? It's a fresh start in a lot of ways, as Evason came in with a clean slate for all of the players. It felt like time for a refresh in Columbus, and the coach had success in his previous stop in Minnesota. There's a long way to go to get back into contention, but many of the pieces appear to be in place for the team to start making steps forward. Evason has been impressed with the togetherness and depth of his team in camp, but the true test begins now.
