How Blue Jackets Can Become a Contender, Part 1: How Did We Get Here?

The date was May 8, 2021. The Columbus Blue Jackets were playing out the string in their shortened 56-game regular season.

Game 56 was nothing if not at least entertaining. The Blue Jackets hosted the Detroit Red Wings at Nationwide Arena in front of just over 4,000 fans. Remember how much Covid took crowds out of things for a while?

The game finished regulation 4-4. Max Domi went on to score the game-winning goal with 21 seconds left in overtime to lift the Blue Jackets to a 5-4 win.

This game is not remembered because the Blue Jackets won. It’s remembered because it marked the final game of John Tortorella’s tenure as head coach. As soon as the goal was scored, the camera went straight to Tortorella as he left the bench for the locker room.

The Blue Jackets finished the 2020-21 season in last place in the then “Central Division” with just 48 points. They easily missed the playoffs knowing that a “rebuild” was on the horizon.

Five years later, it’s now the summer of 2026. The Blue Jackets have not seen the playoffs now for six consecutive seasons. Who knew when Tortorella walked away from the bench that night, the Blue Jackets would face the same questions now that they were faced with then.

Among those questions, when would the Blue Jackets be a contender again?

Knowing they had three first-round picks in the 2021 NHL Draft, that had a chance to be a springboard for what was to come down the road. That may still come to pass. However, they have yet to prove to anyone that their plan has worked.

Given that there is no guarantee the Blue Jackets will make the playoffs in 2026-27, it forces everyone to ask serious questions about how it got to this point. And then even more importantly, how do they get out of this mess and back into contention?

Welcome to our 2026 Blue Jackets’ summer series. We are going to try to tackle that very question during the rest of July and all of August. The road to contention is not an easy road. But it is one that is possible assuming they make several good decisions over the course of time.

As you’re going to see in Part 1, one of the main reasons the Blue Jackets find themselves six years and counting out of the playoffs is because they have made several bad decisions. When those get compounded over time, this is what you get.

You have a team in the Blue Jackets that can’t get out of its own way when it comes to executing a plan. Like all teams, they want to win. But the way they’re going about it has not worked, despite little glimmers of hope showing that progress is being made.

Throughout this series, we’re going to talk about a lot of things. What’s working? What’s not? What changes need to be made? And then what plan should they ultimately hone in on to get to their desired destination?

First though, let’s one more time revisit that fateful night in May 2021.

Roster Turnover

Teams ultimately look for consistency when it comes to their roster. That’s how champions are formed. When you see a team go through extreme turnover in a short amount of time, you know something is going on.

The Blue Jackets iced 20 skaters in their 2021 finale against the Red Wings as one would. Without looking. Do you know how many players are on the current Blue Jackets roster who dressed for their finale in 2021?

The correct answer is one. And that player didn’t even play in the game. The one player who dressed that night that is still on the roster is Elvis Merzlikins.

Yep. All of the other 19 skaters are no longer part of the Blue Jackets. Here’s the list for you to consider.

• Forwards: Cam Atkinson, Max Domi, Liam Foudy, Stefan Matteau, Nathan Gerbe, Mikhail Grigorenko, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Patrik Laine, Ryan MacInnis, Eric Robinson, Emil Bemstrom, Jack Roslovic.
• Defensemen: Andrew Peeke, Seth Jones, Scott Harrington, Michael Del Zotto, Vladislav Gavrikov, Gabriel Carlsson.
• Goalies: Matiss Kivlenieks, Elvis Merzlikins.

Zach Werenski missed the end of that season after having sports hernia surgery. But oh man. It’s been a full and complete roster turnover in just five years. The path back to contention and relevance was going to be a long one. It was going to take patience, a plan and stability to get through what was going to be a rough ride.

If you count Mike Babcock, the Blue Jackets are on their fifth coach since Tortorella moved on. FIVE. One per season on average.

No one has had a real chance to try to build anything of substance. Brad Larsen got two seasons before he was fired after the 2022-23 season. Babcock didn’t make it to training camp. Pascal Vincent got one season in 2023-24 in a pinch before Don Waddell elected to fire him in the 2024 offseason.

The Blue Jackets wanted Todd McLellan. They couldn’t get him. They landed on Dean Evason who did a masterful job of helping navigate the team through the Johnny Gaudreau tragedy. Then midway through Year 2 after a poor start, Evason was out the door too.

In came Rick Bowness. He gave the Blue Jackets a major boost to start. But when the games got tough, the team fell apart leading to another season short of the playoffs.

Bowness signed a one-year extension for 2026-27 allowing him an opportunity to try and build off what he started. But given the situation, it’s unknown how long he’ll coach. Should it be just one more season, that would make a sixth coach since Tortorella.

For perspective, Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger were taken by the Blue Jackets in the 2021 NHL Draft. They have been with the team since all these changes have happened. Denton Mateychuk and Adam Fantilli are not that far behind.

It’s no wonder this has been a struggle. Having to deal with that much change in coaching, in systems, in culture takes a toll. By the time the players start to learn how to play under a coach, they’re gone.

Why are those coaches gone? In part it’s because they didn’t get the job done. But also, they’re gone because the team even despite knowing a rebuild was needed, they tried to hedge things to stay competitive. The team didn’t win. They moved on from coaches.

When considering why are the Blue Jackets here, coaching and stability matters. They haven’t had that. But wait, there’s more.

Drafting Matters Too

One path to contention is not only picking good players at the draft, but developing them too. Let’s take a look at 10 years of drafting under both Jarmo Kekalainen and now Waddell. We pinpoint 2016 as a starting point because in theory, players taken there would help the Blue Jackets five years and longer past.

The 2016 draft was the one the Blue Jackets took Pierre Luc-Dubois. Good pick as it turns out. He helped them win in the playoffs including 1-2-3 in Game 4 in 2019 against the Lightning.

We all know what happened afterwards. It led to a trade that saw the Blue Jackets acquire Patrik Laine. That didn’t go as anticipated either. They traded him to Montreal along with a second-round pick for Jordan Harris. It cleared cap space at the time. But Harris is with the Boston Bruins now. The Blue Jackets have nothing left to show for drafting Dubois as the other player in the original Laine trade, Jack Roslovic, is also gone.

Ouch. The rest of the 2016 draft? Peeke, Vitalii Abramov, Peter Thome, Calvin Thurkauf. Peeke was the only one to turn in consistent NHL games.

The 2017 draft was headlined by Alex Texier, Daniil Tarasov and Emil Bemstrom. The Blue Jackets didn’t have a first-round pick that year. While they each became NHL’ers, none of them reached the potential the team hoped for.

The 2018 draft saw the Blue Jackets take Liam Foudy in the first round. But then in the second round, one of their best picks in their recent history was made when they took Kirill Marchenko. Foudy’s Blue Jackets’ tenure lasted just 90 games.

The Blue Jackets bought heavily in 2019. That caused them to have only three draft picks. Among them in the fourth round was Dmitri Voronkov.

In 2020, the Blue Jackets made waves by drafting Egor Chinakhov in the first round. Some scouts had never heard of him. But it was a good pick at the time. However, he was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins last season. In 204 games with the Blue Jackets, Chinakhov scored just 37 goals. He scored 18 goals in 43 games with the Penguins. Mikael Pyyhtia was taken in the fourth round that year. He has seen some NHL games.

The 2021 draft is where things in the current era started with potential high-end talent. That was Kent Johnson, Cole Sillinger and Corson Ceulemans all going in the first round. Johnson and Sillinger have had some ups but a lot of downs in their early career. Each must be a reason the Blue Jackets make progress next season and beyond. Ceulemans is developing in the AHL but has yet to see an NHL game. Guillaume Richard made good progress last season in Cleveland while James Malatesta is hoping to take the next step.

In 2022, it was David Jiricek and Denton Mateychuk going in the first round sixth and 12th overall. Jiricek’s situation was well documented. He was traded to the Minnesota Wild. His Blue Jackets’ tenure lasted just 53 games for a sixth-overall pick. That trade did allow the Blue Jackets to draft Pyotr Andreyanov in the first round of the 2025 draft. Mateychuk has been good and is an important part of the future. That class also included Luca Del Bel Belluz, who’s on the cusp of a full-time NHL role as well as Sergei Ivanov, who the team just signed this month.

The 2023 draft was highlighted by Adam Fantilli, who is considered their franchise future at 1C. Gavin Brindley was traded to Colorado in the Charlie Coyle deal. We’ll see what comes from William Whitelaw, Oiva Keskinen, Andrew Strathmann, Luca Pinelli and others.

The 2024 draft was Cayden Lindstrom fourth overall. He’s working his way back to form but is still in college at Michigan State. The 2025 draft was Andreyanov and then Jackson Smith, who appears to be the Blue Jackets’ top prospect at this moment. They added Oscar Hemming at the 2026 draft in Buffalo.

There have been some good picks. But there have been some bad misses coupled with not getting a ton of help from later rounds.

In a small market like Columbus, the Blue Jackets have to nail their drafts. That is their lifeline to talent when they’re not a top destination in the NHL. Overall, their drafting record is considerably below average since what they got from their picks that is known. They needed their depth to contribute. That hasn’t happened nearly enough.

When considering why the Blue Jackets are here, drafting and developing matter. They haven’t done enough in either department to become a contender.

There Is Still More

The list of why the Blue Jackets are six years out of the playoffs go beyond countless changes and poor drafting and developing. Among the other reasons are a tough division headed by the Stanley-Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, a re-tooled Washington Capitals team that added Jordan Kyrou and Alex Tuch this offseason. The Rangers, Flyers and Devils all got better too.

Waddell also inherited a messy situation when he first started. He’s now to the point where he’s trying to put his own stamp on the team. Kekalainen was fired in the middle of the struggle. Waddell has made moves to try to accelerate becoming a contender. We’ll see in time if they break through in 2026-27.

Some players didn’t want to stay. Others underperformed. There was an expectation of winning but not a clear plan of execution to make winning happen. The rosters had several flaws that were exposed. Moves that were made didn’t get the desired result. Cap wise, the Blue Jackets don’t have the flexibility to do more as they have three RFA’s that need new contracts that’ll eat up most of their remaining dollars in Fantilli, Sillinger and Jet Greaves.

We could go further. But ultimately, the Blue Jackets are here because they have tried to patch holes with each problem instead of addressing the root problem. That is a talent deficiency compared to the elite teams. The team is willing to spend money to be sure. They’re on record saying as much if warranted. But throwing money at your problems won’t always solve them.

Trying to win while stuck in the middle is hard. The Blue Jackets have found out firsthand the difficulty involved with that undertaking. They’re not good enough to compete with the contenders. But they’re not bad enough to draft the most elite talent. They haven’t done enough with their roster to get out of the mushy middle. Until they do, not only will be it “how did they get here?” It will be “now they will stay here.”

Stay tuned for Part 2 when we turn our attention to the current core and the job they have in front of them to get the Blue Jackets into contention.