NHL Off-Season Outlook: Columbus Blue Jackets Still Have a Ways to Go

No cannon will launch the Columbus Blue Jackets into the playoffs next season, but it will be interesting to see how the latest additions pay off.

We’re in the early days of the NHL’s 2023 off-season, and we’re analyzing every team’s 2023 summer plans and their status heading into the 2023-24 campaign. We’re breaking things down alphabetically through the league’s teams, and on this day, we’re looking at the Columbus Blue Jackets.

2022-23 Grade: F

It can’t get much worse than it got for Columbus last season, can it? Unfortunately, that’s the biggest positive for a Blue Jackets team that failed so thoroughly in 2022-23. They finished in 31st place in points in the NHL last year, and with just 25 victories, they finished ahead of only Anaheim (23) and San Jose (22). 

They had terrible luck on the injury front, but let’s be clear – even if the Jackets were completely healthy, they don’t have a franchise-caliber first-line center. They just finished a direly needed makeover on the blueline, and that’s just to be respectable as it’s not one of the most feared in the game, and their goaltending has been abysmal. Other than that, smooth sailing.

Columbus GM Jarmo Kekalainen has used much of his salary cap space this off-season with trades that brought in veteran defensemen Damon Severson and Ivan Provorov. But again, this is only what’s been needed to make the Blue Jackets’ D-men a decent-enough group. They’ll need to do much more to build a back end to give goaltenders Elvis Merzlikins and Daniil Tarasov some much-needed support.

Otherwise, the other notable positive for Columbus this summer is the No. 3 overall selection in the 2023 NHL draft. With that pick, Kekalainen might have his choice of Swedish center Leo Carlsson, American center Will Smith and Russian winger Matvei Michkov, and we think he’ll go with Carlsson and his 6-foot-3 frame over the other two young stars. 

Carlsson might just be that top-line center Columbus needs, even if he takes a year or two to accustom himself to the NHL level. But to be frank, the Blue Jackets’ season will likely have more than a couple of potholes ahead in the short term.

The Blue Jackets’ overall picture is all about the lack of elite-level depth in all areas. It’s not as if Severson and Provorov are top-10 in the league at their position. It’s not like Merzlikins will be a top-10 NHL goalie simply because veteran Joonas Korpisalo has moved on from the organization. And it’s not like their third and fourth forward lines were a serious threat to generate tons of offense. They simply do not have enough high-impact players, and that’s what’s needed to compete in the Metropolitan Division.

After his trades for Severson and Provorov, Kekalainen has approximately $4.75 million in cap space per PuckPedia, which isn’t nearly enough to address all of Columbus’ depth issues. Kekalainen will have to be a risk-taker on the trade front and take one shot at signing a new face via free agency. After that, the team has to rely on internal improvement, and we saw how that went last season.

The Blue Jackets’ misery last season shows how far they truly are from being a playoff team, let alone a Cup front-runner. There will be more change ahead for them, and in the zero-sum game that is the NHL, changes in the wake of abject failure are to be expected.

There’s no other way to say it – Columbus probably isn’t going to make the playoffs this coming season. Nothing short of grand larceny on the part of Kekalainen will improve the Blue Jackets’ lineup to the point it needs to be to be a playoff team. And if they depend on their top draft pick this year to be the catalyst of a new era, that may well be too much pressure on that player to thrive as a rookie.

They’ve heard it for years now, but Blue Jackets fans will be looked to for patience in 2023-24, and they’ll hope for better luck in terms of staying healthy. They’ll also need a notable jump in performance from players who haven’t played at the best-of-the-best level. 

That may be asking too much, and that’s probably why Columbus will probably finish fifth or sixth in the Metro next season, and their rebuild will slowly continue.