The Columbus Blue Jackets will open their 2025-26 preseason on Sunday evening with a game at home against the St. Louis Blues. It marks their first of four games played on consecutive days.
The Blue Jackets have completed the first three days of training camp accomplishing what they’ve wanted to. They focused on defense on Day 1. They addressed the neutral zone on Day 2. Then with fans in the stands, they worked on their offense and power play on Day 3.
Now we get to see the progress of certain prospects. Blue Jackets’ Director of Player Personnel and Cleveland Monsters GM Chris Clark stopped by and spoke to the Hockey Writers this week at camp to discuss three prospects that should eventually make an impact on the NHL club.
All three most likely will start the season with the Monsters. Each should have prominent roles there as they continue on their development path.
Clark discussed prospects Luca Del Bel Belluz, Corson Ceulemans and Jordan Dumais. In Del Bel Belluz’s case, he got a taste of the NHL in 2024-25 and made an impression in limited time. He will be expected to take on a big work load on the Monsters’ top line at center.
Here is what Clark had to say about these three important prospects.
Luca Del Bel Belluz
“He’s really made some improvement over the first couple of years here. A lot of it with him, he’s got a great mind, puck skills, all those things. He was getting stronger. And that wasn’t something that was going to happen tomorrow. It was going to happen over time, over a few summers. And he’s bigger each year. He’s not significantly, but some guys just put it on the way they can put it on. So he’s going to get stronger as he gets older and it’s just going to take some time.”
“That’s the one thing you really need because it’s one thing to play a few games in the NHL and do well, but it’s another thing to play 82 games in the NHL and do well. So you need that body armor. You need to be able to protect yourself. He does a great job of it because he’s very elusive, but I think that’s just his path. It’s going to happen. He’s going to be an NHL player. It’s just (about) the right time for him.”
Corson Ceulemans
“When we saw him in Buffalo last year, there were things we were concerned a bit, holding onto pucks too long, trying to do too many things, turn the puck over. But we sat with him after Buffalo, sat with him after he got sent to Cleveland and we said, if you’re gonna make it, you got to do these little things. And from Buffalo to the time he got hurt, I think it was in January, he might have been our best D down there. He made that much progress. He blew it out of the water in our expectations. So it was too bad that he didn’t get to play the second half of the season.”
“So we’re actually really interested in how (he does here.) He’s fully healthy. He’s come back, no problems, and he looks great. He looks bigger. He looks stronger. So we’re really excited to see what he can do here in camp.”
Jordan Dumais
“He’s got his first pro season under his belt so that learning curve is gone. He knows what to expect. We just want to see improvement. That’s all we want from our young guys is make sure they’re getting better each year because there’s no set date. We want them to make it at this point. It might be some guys hit it in a year or two, and some guys takes a little bit longer. Whatever their development path, the path is what it is. But we expect him to be more of an offensive factor with us. He’s not a veteran yet, but he knows the expectations.”
