With opening night at Nationwide Arena still 78 days away, Damon Severson is the Blue Jackets player drawing the most attention.
That’s not exactly how it was supposed to go when former GM Jarmo Kekäläinen made his late-summer moves in 2023. The trade for Severson gave Columbus a proven defenseman, but the eight-year max deal at $6.25 million per season sparked plenty of frustration at the time.
Severson’s 2025-26 season was better than the one before it, though it ended early after a shoulder injury that required surgery. The team has not given an official timetable, but he is expected to be ready for camp or close to it.
The numbers tell the story of a rebound. Severson played 71 games, his seventh-highest total in a season, and posted eight goals, 24 assists and 32 points.
Those goal and assist totals were both up from the previous year, and his 32 points marked his fourth-best career output. He also finished with 93 shots, two game-winning goals and a plus-18 rating, which was easily the best of his career.
There were other signs that his game was moving in the right direction. Severson’s 86 blocked shots were the sixth-most of his career and his second-best total since joining Columbus.
His Corsi and Fenwick percentages were also the best of his Blue Jackets tenure, and the Fenwick number was the second-best of his career overall. His Corsi sat at 55.1% in 2025-26, a big jump from his career-low 47.7% the year before, while his Fenwick was 54.9%.
The turnaround became even more obvious once Rick Bowness arrived and Severson was paired with Zach Werenski. Severson said at his exit interview that playing with Werenski let him focus on defending instead of having to push the offense, since Werenski handles that side of the game. The result was one of the strongest seasons of Severson’s career.
In three years with Columbus, two have been pretty good. If he can follow this one with another solid season, the conversation around him may finally change. A buyout isn’t a real path anyway, since it would stretch more than a decade.
For now, the expectation is simple: if he gets through the shoulder recovery and is back on the ice, Severson should have another chance to build on a season that looked a lot more like the player Columbus hoped it was getting.
He also made clear how much he likes working under Bowness, calling him the best coach he’s ever had. That kind of belief could matter as Severson heads into year four of the eight-year deal he signed in 2023.
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