The Blue Jackets have spent the summer sending a pretty clear message: the heavy lifting is going to have to come from the guys already in the room.
Don Waddell’s work so far has been mostly on the edges, not the headline-grabbing kind of roster shakeup that changes the shape of a team overnight. With free agency’s early rush behind them and the draft in the books, Columbus looks content to run it back with a roster that looks a lot like last season’s group.
That tells you something about how the organization views this team. It believes the players who were here last year can take the next step.
There have been a couple of notable exits, though, and they matter.
Boone Jenner is gone after serving as captain quietly and steadily for the last several seasons. His imprint on Columbus is deep.
He was the kind of player fans latch onto, the lunch-pail type who showed up every night and made himself part of the fabric of the place. Jerseys with #38 will be around Central Ohio for a long time.
Mason Marchment is also out the door, and while his stay in Columbus was shorter, it still left a mark. He spent much of his time skating on the top line and became a meaningful piece in his own right. Losing him creates another hole.
The player brought in to help fill that space is Valeri Nichushkin, a veteran who, when healthy, can be a dangerous scorer and possibly an upgrade over Marchment on the top line. But the gamble is obvious. Health and off-ice personal issues have kept him from fully becoming the elite player his talent suggests he can be.
That’s the bet Columbus is making: move on from two familiar names and trust that the new fit can work out better in the short term.
More than anything, though, this summer has been a vote of confidence in the core.
The Blue Jackets are counting on Adam Fantilli and Denton Mateychuk to keep climbing. They’re also banking on bounce-back years from Conor Garland, Kent Johnson, Dmitri Voronkov, and Sean Monahan.
At the same time, the team needs steady production from Charlie Coyle, Kirill Marchenko, Cole Sillinger, and Mathieu Olivier. And if Jet Greaves can keep performing like one of the best in the game, that would give them a major boost.
There’s also the matter of Rick Bowness, whose full season behind the bench is expected to help fix the team’s issues in its own zone. Coaching, in fact, may be the biggest swing factor of all.
Columbus made its biggest overhaul there, bringing in Bowness and up-and-comer Trent Vogelhuber, who could be the heir apparent. The team is also rumored to be adding another coach with Central Ohio ties, though nothing has been made official.
Beyond that, the roster changes have been limited to depth moves. Ryan Lomberg is in.
So are defenseman Colton White and goaltender Pheonix Copley. That’s about it.
So yes, this is a gamble. But it’s also a pretty honest one.
Columbus is leaning into continuity in a way this franchise hasn’t really done over a three-season stretch before. The Jackets finished with 92 points last season despite blown leads and a coaching change, and now they’re choosing stability over a bigger reset.
That alone makes the next season worth watching.
In Other News...
Former Flames Pest Lands In Columbus With Some Awkward History
Ryan Lomberg is the latest free-agent addition to give the Blue Jackets bottom six a different edge, signing on for two years after carving out a reputation as one of the leagues more irritating energy forwards. Columbus is bringing him in to do the kind of work that rarely shows up in a highlight package but tends to matter over a long season, with the expectation that he can help drive the fourth line alongside players such as Mathieu Olivier and Erik Gudbranson.
Lomberg arrives with a familiar NHL resume that includes time in Calgary and Florida, where he was part of the Panthers Stanley Cup run in 2024. For Columbus, the appeal is obvious: pace, bite and a willingness to make shifts uncomfortable for opponents. The awkward part is just as obvious for anyone who has followed his path through the league, because this is the sort of signing that tends to come with a little extra history attached. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Face Franchise Defining Adam Fantilli Decision
The Flyers recent offer sheet for Leo Carlsson has only sharpened the conversation around what comes next for Adam Fantilli, and for the Blue Jackets, it is the kind of question that can define a franchises direction for years. Columbus is already living in a league where offer sheets are no longer just theoretical, and the speculation around Fantilli has pushed fans and media to think hard about how far the team should go to keep a young center it views as central to its future.
What makes the debate so uncomfortable is the collision between rising NHL salaries and the reality of roster building in a smaller market. If the cap keeps climbing, Columbus will eventually have to navigate a contract tier it has not had to confront often, whether that ends up involving Fantilli or another core piece such as Zach Werenski. For now, there is no transaction to report, only a decision tree that gets more complicated every time another stars price tag moves upward. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Face A Summer Contract Standoff They Cannot Mishandle
The Blue Jackets still have a few key summer items hanging in the balance, and the biggest ones involve three restricted free agents who matter to the clubs long-term core. Adam Fantilli remains in talks, while Cole Sillinger and Jet Greaves are also without new deals as Columbus works through a tricky stretch of contract business that could shape the roster well beyond this season.
For the front office, the challenge is finding the right balance between keeping flexibility and locking in players before the market gets more complicated. Bridge-style contracts are being weighed for Sillinger and Greaves, but those talks now sit against a tighter timeline and the possibility of a decision being made outside the teams control, which is exactly the kind of summer standoff Columbus can ill afford to botch. [Read more 🡒]