The Blue Jackets are stepping into a different kind of season in goal, and the change is hard to miss. Elvis Merzlikins is out of the picture after being included in the Matthew Knies/Kirill Marchenko trade, leaving Columbus with Jet Greaves and Cam Talbot as the two names in net.
That shift gives the Blue Jackets something they’ve lacked for a while: a clear setup. Greaves has emerged as the undisputed No. 1, and some of his underlying numbers in 2025-26 placed him among the NHL’s best. Columbus also backed that belief with a contract extension, a strong signal that the organization thinks he can help push the team forward.
Talbot was brought in on a one-year deal to back him up, and the move made sense even before Merzlikins’ situation fully played out. Merzlikins had offseason shoulder surgery and was expected to miss an indefinite stretch, which made Talbot’s arrival feel like the beginning of the end. That ended up being exactly right.
Now Talbot is on his ninth NHL team after spending the last two seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, and he brings the kind of veteran steadiness Columbus has been searching for in its crease. Goaltending depth has been a problem for the Blue Jackets, and it hasn’t been good enough to keep pace with contenders. The hope now is that Greaves and Talbot give them a firmer base to work from.
If either goalie goes down, the organization still has veteran Pheonix Copley in Cleveland, while Evan Gardner is in a better spot to learn and develop with the Monsters. For a team that believes stability in net has been missing for years, that matters.
Talbot’s adjustment has been smooth, and that’s no surprise for a goalie who has spent his career moving from team to team. He said the process is easier when you know how to plug in quickly and let the hockey world do some of the connecting for you.
“I feel like it’s been that way my entire career pretty much,” Talbot said. “It’s easy for me to just jump in here and plug and play.
The hockey community is so great - such a small world. If you don’t know guys, guys reach out and say ‘Hey, this is my guy.
Give him a call.’ You make those connections pretty quickly.”
He also pointed to the family side of the transition as the part that takes the most work.
“At this point in my career, it’s more about my wife and kids - them having to switch schools, find new friends, wives groups, new sports teams,” Talbot said. “That’s what becomes logistically tough.
For me, I can walk into any dressing room and know the guys are going to welcome you with open arms. So it’s more about the family.”
Talbot already has plenty of familiar faces around him. He and Copley were a tandem with the Los Angeles Kings in 2023.
He played with Sean Monahan on the Calgary Flames and with Ivan Provorov on the Philadelphia Flyers. He also skated with Greaves and Denton Mateychuk at the recent World Championships.
That overlap has helped him settle in fast.
“The relationships we already have here make for a smoother transition,” Talbot said. My wife was very good friends with some of the other wives here.
They’ve already reached out, found hockey teams for my son, found schools for the kids. They’ve got a realtor set up for us.
Little things like that go a long way when you’re coming to a new team.”
The message around the Blue Jackets is clear heading into 2026-27: make the playoffs first, then chase the Stanley Cup. Talbot said that urgency was obvious right away when he arrived.
“You can definitely feel it from the pre-camp meetings,” Talbot said. “That was pretty much the message from everybody - from Don (Waddell) to Bones and everyone from there on down.
They’ve got some unfinished business here and I’m looking to slide in and help fill the net whenever I can. This team has a lot to prove.”
“They brought in a lot of good pieces over the summer and at the end of last year. They’re really two points away. If we can start off strong here with the first six, seven games, a lot of those at home, (we’ll) put ourselves in a good position to start.”
He also sees Greaves as more than just a young goalie taking the next step. Talbot said he was already impressed by how Greaves handled a heavy workload late last season, and he liked even more what he saw when they spent time together in Switzerland.
“I was extremely impressed with how he carried the load down the stretch,” Talbot said of Greaves. “Then getting to know him on a personal level over in Switzerland was a lot of fun.
He’s a great kid, really down to earth, works his butt off. When he’s on his game, he’s a pretty special goaltender.
It’s going to be a great relationship. Looking forward to working with him.”
For Columbus, that partnership may end up defining the season. Greaves can take the bulk of the work.
Talbot can keep that workload from turning into a grind. And after years of uncertainty in goal, the Blue Jackets finally have a crease that looks built to hold up.
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