The Columbus Blue Jackets didn’t just open the 2026-2027 season with a win. They opened it with a statement.
After a summer that tested the franchise in every possible way, Columbus stepped onto the ice for Opening Night and turned away the Buffalo Sabres 6-3, a result that was even more convincing than the oddsmakers expected. The Jackets banked two points right away and sent Buffalo back to New York after a game that shifted hard once Columbus found its legs.
The first period started like a pair of teams trying to figure each other out. Buffalo settled in first, and Mattias Samuelsson beat Jet Greaves at 7:21 to put the Sabres ahead. From there, though, Columbus took control and never really let go.
Cole Sillinger got the Blue Jackets on the board at 12:51, finishing a slick drop pass from Charlie Coyle for the club’s first goal of the year. Not long after, Matthew Knies picked up his first goal as a Blue Jacket on the power play, with Coyle and Zach Werenski both helping set it up. Adam Fantilli closed out the period by tipping in a shot from the point, and Columbus went to the first intermission up 3-1.
Buffalo tried to chip away in the second. Jack Quinn scored at 1:25 after a turnover by Emil Andrae at the blue line, but Columbus didn’t unravel.
Knies answered again six minutes later, getting a rebound off an Andrae shot and sliding it past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Konsta Helenius added another for the Sabres before the end of the period, but the Jackets still carried a 4-3 lead into the final frame.
That mattered. The third period was the one that buried Columbus far too often last season, when the team was outscored by other 20 goals.
This time, the Blue Jackets held firm and finished strong. Sean Monahan scored on the power play, and Mathieu Olivier added an empty-netter to seal the 6-3 final.
Knies was the clear headliner, finishing with two goals and an assist to earn first-star honors. His three-point night tied the most points ever in a Blue Jackets debut, matching Artemi Panarin in 2017, and he became the only Jacket to score multiple goals in his first game with the team.
Werenski earned second-star honors after piling up two assists and logging 28:48 in all situations. Coyle rounded out the top three with three assists, including the pretty drop pass that set up Sillinger’s first-period goal.
Jonathan Barnes came closest in the social media prediction game, correctly calling that Christiansen would get benched and play less than 10 minutes, and that Knies and Fantilli would both score.
The Jackets will look to keep their perfect start going Saturday at Nationwide against the Utah Mammoth, who opened with a 6-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. It’s another test for Columbus, but one that comes after a very encouraging first night.
In Other News...
Sabres Leave Columbus With Two Big Problems Already Showing
The Sabres opening-night trip to Columbus already handed them plenty to sort through, and not just because the scoreboard tilted the wrong way in a 6-3 loss. Buffalo showed some fight after the puck dropped on the 2026-27 season, but the Blue Jackets were able to keep pressing the pace and make the visitors chase the game almost immediately.
One of the few bright spots came from Owen Power, who was active in all three zones and helped drive Buffalos offense, but the bigger concern was in net, where the team did not get the kind of early stability it needed. With a tough schedule coming up, the Sabres are already facing an opening-week test of whether they can clean up the issues that showed up right away in Columbus. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets May Already Be Moving On From Jake Christiansen
Jake Christiansens night against Buffalo hinted at where he stands in the Blue Jackets defensive picture. Even with Columbus short-handed on the back end, he started with regular shifts and then saw his ice time dry up, a sign the staff was not leaning on him the way it had earlier in the game.
His usage also spoke volumes compared with the rest of the blue line, with Carson Soucy and Emil Andrae getting the larger share of the work as the night went on. The on-ice issues have been there too, from positioning to overall defensive reads, and if healthier options keep coming back, Christiansen may be fighting more than just the game in front of him. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Just Showed How High The Price Is For Marchenko
Gary Bettmans concerns about no-trade clauses expanding beyond their original intent landed in the middle of a landscape where front offices are already spending plenty of time trying to thread impossible needles. For Columbus, the most revealing part of the conversation around Yegor Marchenko was not simply that another team had interest, but that the Blue Jackets were firm enough in their asking price to keep moving the goalposts on a deal even when the player himself was open to the destination.
Montreals inability to finish the trade underscores how much leverage Columbus had in the negotiations, and how expensive a scorer like Marchenko can be when a team is not looking to sell low. The broader NHL trade market only adds to the sense that the Blue Jackets are sitting on a valuable asset, with clubs everywhere trying to balance urgency, contract realities and limited pieces to offer in return. [Read more 🡒]