Roster Ruminations: Columbus Blue Jackets – March 2024

Team: Columbus Blue Jackets

Team Building Status: Enigma

The Columbus Blue Jackets strategic direction seemed to take a big change in direction after they landed Johnny Gaudreau as a UFA in the summer of 2022. The Blue Jackets had a promising rebuild well underway when shiny new toy syndrome seemed to change their vision. They brought in a number of veterans in what looked like an attempt to speed up their path back to contention and the results have been underwhelming to date. Now without a GM, where are they headed?

Roster Ruminations

NHL Roster

The 2023-2024 season has been a struggle for the Blue Jackets. They currently sit in last place in the Metropolitan Division after an offseason of moves that seemed designed to bring them back into contention for the playoffs. Their first season with Gaudreau in the fold was abysmal, but it was also derailed by a number of significant injuries. The thinking appeared to be that if they could stay healthy and add a few pieces, they could be much better this season.

The two big moves they made came ahead of the 2023 draft. They traded the 2023 1st round pick (that they had acquired from the Kings months earlier at the 2023 deadline) and a 2024 2nd round pick for Ivan Provorov in a three team deal with the Kings and Flyers and the Kings retained 30% of Provorov’s cap hit. They then acquired Damon Severson, along with an 8 year contract, in a sign an trade deal with the Devils in which they sent a 3rd round pick to the Devils.

The Blue Jackets also hired Mike Babcock to be the team’s Head Coach going into the 2023-2024 season. It was another move that suggested they had every intention of at least challenging for a playoff spot. Of course, that coaching arrangement fell apart for off-ice reasons before the season even started and Pascal Vincent was left as bench boss.

Clearly, the upgrades have not had the intended effect as the Blue Jackets are in the midst of another dismal season. Looking ahead to next season, the Blue Jackets are projected to be better than this year but are still expected to be below average. And this is with a relatively complete roster returning; their most notable pending UFA is Brendan Gaunce. There are more clearly more upgrades required.

Salary Cap Management

The Blue Jackets cap sheet is in fairly good position. They have about 70% of next year’s cap committed, with 7 RFAs also included on the 23 player roster so there is room to maneuver this summer. Their long term commitments have also been kept to a relative minimum. Severson’s deal jumps out at the one they may regret but, with 7 years left on it, it’s probably wishful thinking to move him. Overall, there’s a lot of flexibility in both the short and long term.

Future Assets

The Blue Jackets compiled an impressive prospect pool before their recent attempt at jumping out of the rebuild. 2023 3rd overall pick Adam Fantilli and 2022 12th overall pick Denton Mateychuk headline a group of prospects that Hockey Prospecting ranks as tops in the NHL. Their draft pick stockpile is less impressive, but it’s still very near baseline for the next three drafts.

What’s Next?

The Blue Jackets GM post is currently vacant and the new GM will walk into a very interesting situation. If the pressure to add veteran players over the past year came from higher in the organization, and that may severely limit the new GM’s options.

The Blue Jackets have built up an older cohort over the past two years that spans from players aged 27-32:

Centers	Wingers	Defensemen	Goalies
Boone Jenner	Johnny Gaudreau	Damon Severson	Elvis Merzlikins
Sean Kuraly	Justin Danforth	Ivan Provorov
	Mathieu Olivier	Erik Gudbranson

Frankly, this cohort is not good enough or deep enough to be competitive at the NHL level. It’s a steep skill drop off after Gaudreau and the cohort at the end of it’s prime, so natural age effects are going to gradually eat away at the group’s performance going forward. Building this cohort up to a suitable level would take an immense amount of assets and it seems destined to fail.

There’s a much easier path back to contention sitting in the Blue Jackets organization. Remember that prospect pool that’s ranked #1 in the NHL? Here’s their age 19-23 cohort:

Centers	Wingers	Defensemen	Goalies
Adam Fantilli	Kirill Marchenko	Adam Boqvist	Sergei Ivanov
Cole Sillinger	Yegor Chinakhov	Denton Mateychuk
Dmitri Voronkov	Kent Johnson	David Jiricek
	Jordan Dumais
	Gavin Brindley

This group needs a bit more time to percolate before they become a playoff team but it doesn’t seem like a stretch to think that this group could fill half an NHL roster in their prime. It also has some significant star potential in Adam Fantilli and Denton Mateychuk. This is where the Blue Jackets’ next GM should focus. Keep a careful eye on this group and aim to have it fill six of the top nine forward spots and three of the top five defense spots in the next three years.

The older cohort we looked at earlier can be used to fill the remaining holes. It should also be culled as the younger group takes over so they don’t block the NHL depth chart. They can be used as trade chips to further add to the younger group or to start building the next cohort in behind them. There’s also Patrik Laine (25) and Zach Werenski (26) who fall in between the two cohorts. They can be used to fill gaps in the incoming cohort.

If the Blue Jackets take this approach, a 2026-2027 roster could look something like below and be poised to return to contender status in the not too distant future: