NHL Off-Season Rankings: No. 27, Columbus Blue Jackets

For most of their 25-year existence, the Columbus Blue Jackets have been letdowns. 

The Blue Jackets have been a Stanley Cup playoff team only six times, and since 2020-21, they’ve never finished higher than fourth in their division, haven't made the playoffs, and they’ve finished in fourth just once. 

Columbus needed a big 2026 off-season, and they didn’t get it. That’s why the Blue Jackets are in 27th place in TheHockeyNews.com’s off-season ranking

As we rate NHL teams from 32nd overall to first overall, our criteria include every team’s off-season moves – arrivals and departures (including coaches and GMs), and internal moves (promotions, contract extensions).

Unfortunately for the Blue Jackets, there’s not enough progress developing this Columbus team into a legitimate Cup front-runner.

The Jackets are fortunate that the Metropolitan Division they play in is one of the NHL’s weaker divisions. But that doesn’t change the fact that their roster isn’t imposing. And this summer did little to convince us that’s likely to change anytime soon.

Valeri Nichushkin (LW), Pheonix Copley (G), Ryan Lomberg (LW)

Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell is a respected executive. Still, he hasn’t steered Columbus to consistently high-caliber performances, and the Jackets’ inability to acquire difference-makers makes this an especially frustrating summer.

Columbus acquired Nichushkin from the Colorado Avalanche. Other than that, the Blue Jackets added a third-string goalie in Copley and a fourth-liner in Lomberg. Nobody should be happy with that haul. 

Nichushkin is signed for the next four seasons at a reasonable $6.125-million salary cap hit. But he’s had issues staying in the lineup, and nobody should expect him to put the Jackets on his back and carry them to glory.

It is a measure of where Columbus is as a team that Nichushkin is their highest-paid forward. You can say that’s because Columbus’ actual best forwards are bargains; we don’t agree with that spin. 

The Blue Jackets have talented players, including young center Adam Fantilli and Norris Trophy-winner Zach Werenski. And while Fantilli is an RFA likely to get a lucrative contract extension, the Jackets have $13.5 million in cap space. At a time when they should be spending every dollar they have to get into the post-season, the Jackets are hedging their bets by acquiring second-tier talents. 

Unless there’s drastic improvement from their youngsters, Columbus will be battling for a wild-card playoff berth. And they didn’t do nearly enough to help that cause this summer.

Boone Jenner (C), Mason Marchment (LW), Brendan Gaunce (C), Zach Aston-Reese (LW), Egor Zamula (D) 

From an optics standpoint, losing your captain (Jenner) since 2021 isn’t ideal. If Jenner wasn’t in Columbus’ plans, Waddell should’ve traded him at last year’s trade deadline. Instead, he walked away from the franchise to sign with a Metro Division rival in the Washington Capitals. That’s a major blow for Waddell and the Jackets.

Otherwise, just as there were few notable names who were arrivals in Columbus, the Blue Jackets’ departures are mostly depth players who don’t move the needle. 

Marchment was a very solid acquisition for the Jackets this past season, as he put up 15 goals and 32 points in 39 games after being acquired from the Seattle Kraken in December.

Either Marchment’s monetary demands were too rich for Columbus, or there’s something else at play here. But the amount Marchment signed for – $6.75 million per season for the next five years – isn't much more than what they’re paying Nichushkin.

Given that Marchment had a combined 19 goals and 45 points split between the Jackets and Kraken, casting him out in favor of a player in Nichushkin who generated 17 goals and 49 points in 2025-26 seems like a wash at best, and a downgrade at worst.

Waddell did bring back veteran coach Rick Bowness, who looked like a sure departure when he lashed out at the team once they fell out of the playoff picture. But the Blue Jackets needed more roster turnover, and the only turnover in Columbus this summer has been mostly fringe contributors.

The Jackets have had wins this off-season. They got starting goalie Jet Greaves signed to a three-year contract extension at $5 million per season following arbitration. But as it’s been for a one-step-forward, one-step-back Columbus franchise, the Blue Jackets still have as part of their netminding tandem the albatross that is the Elvis Merzlikins contract. Merzlikins’ deal expires after the 2026-27 campaign, but that means Columbus still has to use him this coming season. 

Greaves was a 55-game workhorse in his breakout year this past season, but even if he plays that many games in 2026-27, that still leaves 29 games for Merzlikins this coming season. Considering Merzlikins’ save percentage was .883, his efforts next season could be the difference between the Blue Jackets making or missing the playoffs.

The main issue for Columbus is that their dynamic young players haven’t been dynamic enough to drag this Jackets team past the finish line and into the playoffs. Columbus was the NHL’s 19th-best team in goals-per-game average in 2025-26, and they were the league’s 17th-ranked team in goals-against average.

That’s the epitome of a team not good enough to make the playoffs, but too good to get high-end talent at the top of the draft. 

It’s all an ongoing nightmare in Ohio, and it’s hard to see it ending positively for the Blue Jackets next year. The Metro Division is almost wide-open for the taking – other than the defending Cup-champion Carolina Hurricanes – but the Jackets feel very much like a fringe playoff contender at best. And nothing that’s happened this summer makes us feel Columbus will be a playoff team next season.

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