The Blue Jackets are moving through this season at the NHL equivalent of warp speed.

The league’s February break for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy has compressed its schedule before and after that pause, so the Jackets have already passed the quarter point. They’re seated sixth in the Metropolitan Division with 24 points and reside one spot out of a playoff spot via tiebreaker in the tightly-packed Eastern Conference.

More: Fantilli shines in Blue Jackets’ OT win over Maple Leafs: Takeaways

That’s not bad, but it’s also not where they’d like to be with 75% of the season remaining. Here’s a look at the good, the great, the bad and the ugly so for the Blue Jackets in 2025-26:

Like last season, the Jackets are solidly in the top half of the league in 5-on-5 play, which is a big reason they’re usually playing tight games. 

According to Natural Stat Trick, they rank 16th in the NHL with a 50.2% Corsi percentage (shot attempts), 14th with a 49.8% Fenwick (unblocked attempts, 16th in shots on goal (49.6%), 12th in goals-for percentage (47-44, 51.7%) and 15th in expected goals-for percentage (49.8%).

The Blue Jackets have also made giant leaps in improving their road record and record in back-to-backs, going 6-5-1 away from Nationwide Arena and 6-3-1 in their first five of 15 scheduled back-to-backs. Should they continue to succeed at those rates in those scenarios, the Jackets’ odds of qualifying for the playoffs will be higher than last season at 14-23-4 on the road and 8-14-2 in back-to-backs.

Offensively, the Blue Jackets have taken a step back through their first 21 games from last season’s 3.26 goals per game scoring rate, now averaging 2.95 goals per game. They’ve compensated by improving from 3.26 in goals-allowed per game last season to 3.16 allowed per game through the first quarter of this one. 

Not bad. Not great.

Individually, veteran defensemen Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson deserve credit for providing defensive dependability whenever they’re on the ice, whether they’re skating as a pairing or split onto separate pairs.

As a team, the Blue Jackets have a couple of specific areas where they’re among the NHL’s best, starting with high-danger scoring chances at even strength.

Natural Stat Trick uses NHL data points to qualify scoring chances and high-danger chances along with total goals and high-danger goals scored off high-danger chances. High-danger implies that a goal is more likely to be scored considering factors such as location of a shot and distance from the net.

The Blue Jackets are fourth in the league at 62% in high-danger goals-for percentage (31-19), trailing the Washington Capitals (73.2%), Colorado Avalanche (67.3%) and Chicago Blackhawks (64.4%). They’re sixth in high-danger shooting percentage (22.5%) and second in high-danger save percentage (87.5%).

Are those last two sustainable? If so, the Blue Jackets will likely be part of the playoffs.

Individually, Zach Werenski and Kirill Marchenko have been great in the first quarter of the season, giving the Blue Jackets the biggest push thus far. Charlie Coyle’s contributions centering the team’s most effective checking line has been important, along with Adam Fantilli’s resurgence since joining the top line and goalie Jet Greaves’ steady hand in net.

Columbus Blue Jackets quarter point breakdown: The Bad

First, a caveat. 

The Blue Jackets’ special teams have improved from where the power play and penalty kill ranked after two weeks, but that was expected since their early numbers were comically bad. 

Things still aren’t humming along, especially on power plays, but the penalty kill has made huge strides. The Jackets rank 27th while short-handed at 68.4% overall, but they’re sixth at 87.5% since Oct. 28. The power play is 3 for 12 (25%) over the past six games but ranks 23rd at 16.7% overall. 

That continues to hinder all the good work the Blue Jackets are doing at 5-on-5 and even strength. Individually, the Jackets aren’t getting enough production from two-way center Sean Monahan, playmaking forward Kent Johnson or physically gifted forward Yegor Chinakhov. 

Monahan hasn’t looked like the same player who averaged a point-per game when healthy last season, Johnson hasn’t approached anywhere near his offensive capabilities and Chinakhov has looked like a guy just waiting for an unrequited trade request to provide an escape hatch from Columbus.

Columbus Blue Jackets quarter point breakdown: The Ugly

It’s tempting to put the Chinakhov situation here, but the Blue Jackets have other issues that are more pressing. 

They took encouraging strides trying to correct the biggest issue with how they played in the third period Nov. 20 in Toronto, playing more on their toes than sitting on their heels while leading the Maple Leafs 2-1 starting out. 

John Tavares tied it 2-2 off a rush before the Jackets could widen their lead, forcing overtime, but it was refreshing to watch the Blue Jackets play with mostly the same intent they had when building a 2-0 lead in the second period. 

That hasn’t been the case nearly enough, and they’ve paid a high price for getting too complacent while leading in third periods. While being outshot 230-202 in third periods and outscored 30-20, the Jackets have blown third period leads in four games. 

That includes four two-goal leads that vanished. They’re fortunate to have a 2-1-1 record in those meltdowns, but they’ve left three points on the table.

What difference would that make?

Well, the Blue Jackets would be tied with the New Jersey Devils at 27 points and sit either second or third in both the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference. Every point matters, so they can’t keep fumbling them away. 

As far as players go, it’d be nice to get some kind of offensive production out of Isac Lundestrom. He was signed as a free agent to replace Sean Kuraly as center of the fourth line, and so far the Columbus-raised Kuraly is out producing him as the Boston Bruins’ fourth line pivot. 

Kuraly has two goals, three assists and five points in 22 games to Lundestrom’s 0-2-2 in 20. Lundestrom has a better faceoff percentage (53.5% to 47.3%) but plays about two minutes fewer per game. The Blue Jackets don’t need a high scoring rate from Lundestrom or their fourth line, but they do need more offense than they’ve gotten from that group.

Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.socialÂ