The Blue Jackets’ Slide: A Season on the Brink and a Fanbase Running Out of Patience
After flirting with a playoff spot last season and giving fans a glimpse of what could be, the Columbus Blue Jackets have come crashing back down to Earth. The early stretch of the 2025-26 campaign has been a sobering reality check.
Through 25 games, the Jackets sit at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division with an 11-9-5 record-good for just 27 points. But let’s cut through the standings fluff.
Strip away the loser points, and what we’re really looking at is a team that’s lost 14 of 25 games and has managed only six wins in regulation. That’s tied for the fewest in the entire NHL.
That’s not just underwhelming-it’s alarming.
For a franchise now in its 25th NHL season, the Blue Jackets are still searching for sustained relevance in the broader landscape of North American pro sports. And right now, they’re not doing themselves-or their fans-any favors. The team has the look of a group still trying to find its identity while the rest of the league has long since moved on to the next phase of its evolution.
November to Forget
The Jackets limped through November with just five wins in 15 games. Only two of those came in regulation.
What makes that stretch even more frustrating is how many of those games were winnable. Columbus held leads-often multi-goal leads-in most of them, frequently into the third period.
But time and again, those leads evaporated.
Yes, injuries have played a role. Losing key players like Boone Jenner or Kirill Marchenko hurts.
But every team in the league battles injuries. Just look at the team that came back from two goals down to beat Columbus on Friday night-they were missing seven players.
Yet they found a way to win. Why?
Because they leaned on structure, culture, and resilience.
That’s what’s missing in Columbus.
What fans are hearing postgame-“we did some good things,” “we tried our best,” “hopefully we’ll get the next one”-isn’t cutting it anymore. The effort isn’t translating into results. And the results are what matter.
A League That’s Passed Them By
Since Columbus won its lone playoff series back in 2019, the NHL has undergone a full rebuild cycle. Teams that were contenders then have retooled and are back in the mix.
Others that were bottom dwellers have risen. The Jackets?
They’ve been stuck in neutral.
Aside from the Buffalo Sabres-who haven’t made the playoffs since 2011 and currently sit last in the Eastern Conference-there isn’t another franchise that’s endured more prolonged frustration. And even the Sabres have a more decorated recent history, having made back-to-back conference finals in the mid-2000s. Columbus has never gotten that far.
Look at the teams with the next-longest playoff droughts: Detroit (last appearance in 2016), Anaheim (2018), and San Jose (2019). All three are showing signs of life.
Detroit was leading its division just last week. Anaheim is currently at the top of the Pacific.
San Jose has been one of the league’s more surprising teams this season.
Those clubs have something Columbus doesn’t: a clear direction.
The Development Gap
What stings even more is seeing other teams hand the keys over to their young stars and get rewarded. Anaheim’s Leo Carlsson, drafted one spot ahead of Adam Fantilli, is sixth in the league in scoring with 34 points in 25 games. San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini, the top pick in the following draft, is tied for second with 37 points.
Fantilli? He’s shown flashes.
He had a better collegiate season than Celebrini at the same age. He won the Hobey Baker.
But while other teams are building around their youth, Columbus is still leaning on veterans.
This summer, GM Don Waddell brought in more experience-trading away future assets in the process-and handed head coach Dean Evason a veteran-heavy roster. The result?
A team that was supposed to be better is instead stuck in the same rut. Through 25 games, it’s not working.
A Repeating Pattern
There’s a frustrating pattern emerging with this team. For 40 minutes, they play solid hockey.
All four lines are rolling. They build leads.
Fantilli and the younger core drive play. But then the third period hits, and the strategy shifts.
The coaching staff shortens the bench, leans on the veterans, and shifts away from what got them the lead in the first place. The offense dries up, the team retreats, and more often than not, the result is another blown lead and another loss.
It’s not just a bad run-it’s a blueprint for failure that keeps getting repeated.
The Message from the 5th Line
The message from the fans is loud and clear: moral victories and loser points don’t cut it anymore. This isn’t about being close.
It’s about winning. The Blue Jackets don’t need to sneak into the playoffs as a wild card or bubble team.
They need to build something sustainable-something that can actually compete.
The pieces are here. The high picks, the young talent, the potential. But none of that matters if the team can’t figure out how to put it all together.
Columbus fans-the 5th Line-have been patient. They’ve endured the rebuilds, the near-misses, the heartbreaks.
What they want now is simple: a reason to believe again. A reason to show up, to cheer, to care.
Right now, that belief is slipping.
The season isn’t lost-yet. But if the Blue Jackets don’t find a way to stop the bleeding and chart a clear course forward, they risk losing more than just games. They risk losing the trust and passion of a fanbase that’s already been through too much.