Corson Ceulemans has gone from looking like a lost cause to giving the Blue Jackets something to think about again. That alone counts as progress. But the clock is still ticking, and the next step has to be a real one.
The Cleveland Monsters defenseman landed at No. 12 on the Blue Jackets summer 2026 top prospects list, a jump that makes him the biggest riser in the rankings after he was only an honorable mention a year ago. The collective list was put together by Union and Blue writers Matthew Duffey, Mike Stump, Weston Motz, Struan McNevan, and Curtis Deem, with only players 24 and under and under 25 NHL games eligible.
Ceulemans was the Blue Jackets’ first-round pick in 2021, going No. 25 overall in the draft pick acquired in the Nick Foligno trade to the Toronto Maple Leafs. That detail has hung over the pick ever since, and so far the return has not matched the cost. In his COVID-shortened draft year, Ceulemans flashed real upside with 4 goals and 11 points in 8 games for the AJHL’s Brooks Bandits, then backed it up on the international stage with Team Canada at the U18s, where he posted 1 goal and 8 points in 6 games against the best players in his age group.
He followed that by spending two seasons at Wisconsin, where he put up 15 goals and 45 points in 67 games and looked like a player who might move quickly once he turned pro at the end of the 2022-23 season. Instead, the transition to the professional game was rough. Injuries and inconsistency kept getting in the way, especially during his first two full seasons in Cleveland, and by last summer he had slipped completely off the prospect list.
Last season finally gave him something to build on. Ceulemans played 64 games for the Monsters, scoring 8 goals and 24 points while adding 43 penalty minutes and finishing at minus-14. That was enough to push him back into the conversation, but the numbers also tell the other side of the story: he’s still not close to NHL-ready.
The appeal is obvious. Ceulemans is a right-shot defenseman with strong skating and puck-moving ability, and that kind of profile fits a need for Columbus. The upside is there if the organization can unlock it, and the Blue Jackets could use him as soon as he’s ready.
But the defensive side remains the hurdle. He still hasn’t shown he can put all of his tools together and become a reliable two-way player, and that’s the piece he has to solve now. He signed a one-year contract extension, which means this may be his last real chance to make that leap in the organization.
Defensemen can take longer to develop, so Ceulemans is not out of the picture yet. Still, the comparison is hard to ignore: he was taken in the same draft and round as Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger, and those two have already combined for 641 games with the Blue Jackets.
At 23, Ceulemans has not done enough to force his way into the NHL, and younger players are coming up behind him. If he wants to be part of the solution in Columbus, this season has to be the one where everything finally comes together.
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