Blue Jackets finish emotional season with romp over Islanders
Blue Jackets finish just shy of the playoffs after routing Islanders in season finale, salute fans amid postgame chants of ‘Johnny Hockey!’
The Stanley Cup Playoffs began April 19 without the Blue Jackets, who finished two points shy of claiming the final wild card spot in the NHL’s Eastern Conference.
Now, Blue Jackets president of hockey operations/GM Don Waddell and his staff take center stage.
After watching his team take a heated playoff race down to the wire, Waddell and his front office find themselves in a great spot starting another busy spring/summer.
Here are five items on Waddell’s offseason “to-do” list:
Along with working on expiring player contracts, Waddell has a slew of expiring staff contracts he still needs to hash out.
Coach Dean Evason is signed, but multiple assistant coaches and other support staff members who work closely with players had one year left on their contracts starting the season. That was also the case with multiple front office staffers. Evason’s only assistant hire after taking the job was Scott Ford, whom he had known from his time coaching the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals.
Look for staff decisions to be a high priority on Waddell’s checklist.
Columbus Blue Jackets have decisions to make on 12 free agents including Ivan Provorov, James van Riemsdyk
The Blue Jackets finished the season with 27 NHL players, including three restricted free agents and nine unrestricted free agents.
Starting the offseason, they have 15 players under contract for roughly $51.5 million. That leaves approximately $36.5 million in salary-cap space against next season’s $88 million ceiling to re-sign players and/or find replacements through trades and free agency.
Defensemen Ivan Provorov and Dante Fabbro are prominent UFAs, along with forwards James van Riemsdyk, Justin Danforth and Sean Kuraly. The RFAs are power forward Dmitry Voronkov, backup goalie Daniil Tarasov and defenseman Jordan Harris.
“We put everything on hold probably a month ago,” Waddell said. “There’s a few obvious (free agents) that we’d like to have back that we’ve talked about, Provy and Fabbro. There are some other guys we’d like to have back, too, but we haven’t made any of those determinations yet.”
Having that much cap space creates a lot of pathways for Waddell to explore. Leading up to the July 1 start of free agency, the Jackets are a team to watch.
“The good and bad (news) is we’re done April 17, so we’ve got time on our hands here where we can really look at it,” Waddell said. “It also gives us time to study the market and say, ‘OK, if we don’t sign player X, can we replace him with player Z?’ All of that will happen over the next 4-to-6 weeks.”
Columbus Blue Jackets can start extension talks with Adam Fantilli
As of July 1, the Blue Jackets can officially open talks with center Adam Fantilli on a contract extension. Fantilli’s breakout second season included him rallying late with six goals in four games to push his season total to 31 during the Jackets’ six-game winning streak to close out.
Fantilli also finished with 40 points on 25 goals and 15 assists in his final 45 games, including a two-month stint filling the top center role impressively while Sean Monahan recovered from wrist surgery in January.
Look for the Blue Jackets to explore longer-term contracts, which require a much higher salary number with the league’s cap ceiling set to skyrocket over the next three years to $113.5 million for the 2027-28 season. Fantilli is only 20, but he played like a developing NHL superstar this season.
Columbus Blue Jackets to assess goaltending after Elvis Merzlikins’ rollercoaster season
Elvis Merzlikins had another rollercoaster ride of a season, experiencing memorable highs and lows.
He stole several games for the Blue Jackets, including the March 1 NHL Stadium Series matchup in front of 94,751 at Ohio Stadium. The issue is consistency. Merzlikins is still searching for it, and his numbers continue to lag because of it.
The same can be said for Tarasov, whose struggles with consistency damaged the coaching staff’s trust in him. That’s why rookie Jet Greaves was recalled on two separate occasions to be the primary starter while Merzlikins was out injured, including a memorable stint in which he backstopped the Jackets during five games of their late six-game winning streak.
Merzlikins has two years left on a contract that carries a $5.4 million annual cap charge, but Waddell said the team isn’t considering any buyouts. A buyout of Merzlikins’ remaining contract would cost the Blue Jackets $1.7 million for the next four years, all counting toward the salary cap.
Waddell said the Jackets’ goaltending will be closely examined to determine whether and what changes might be necessary.
Columbus Blue Jackets mulling options with two first-round picks in 2025 NHL draft
After gaining the Minnesota Wild’s first-round pick in this year’s draft as part of the return package in a trade for defenseman David Jiricek, the Blue Jackets have two first-round selections in June.
They have their own pick, 13th overall, and the No. 20 pick from the Wild, but both could change depending on the outcomes of the NHL’s draft lottery and playoffs. Keeping those picks would further bolster a stocked developmental system, but Waddell described those picks and others the Jackets own as “draft assets.”
Trades for established NHL players occasionally happen during the NHL’s two-day draft or the days leading up to it. Waddell, for instance, traded Alexandre Texier to St. Louis before the start of the first round last year.
“We have a lot of assets we could use for trades,” Waddell said. “We have two first-round picks this year, so our goal is to make sure we do everything that we’re capable of doing with (them) to try and make this team better.”
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
Get more on the Columbus Blue Jackets with our Cannon Fodder podcast