The Blue Jackets took an ax to a portion of their coaching staff April 24, announcing that assistant coaches Mike Haviland and Scott Ford, along with video coach Aron Augustitus, will not return.
More: Columbus Blue Jackets, coach Rick Bowness weigh staff changes
All three will be paid through June 30, when their contracts expire. The Blue Jackets made the decision to part with them following exit meetings that involved president/general manager Don Waddell and coach Rick Bowness.
“Following our end of season meetings, Rick and I determined that changes to our coaching staff would be in the best interest of our club moving forward,” Waddell said in a statement. “We are very appreciative of the time and hard work that Mike, Scott and Aron have done during their time with the Blue Jackets and wish them well in their future endeavors.”
Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Rick Bowness watches from behind the bench during the second period of the NHL hockey game against the Boston Bruins at Nationwide Arena on March 29, 2026.
Waddell said the review process for replacement candidates will take place “in the very near future.”
The shakeup is the first step of an offseason reset to chart a different coaching course. Haviland and Ford joined the Blue Jackets prior to former coach Dean Evason’s first season in 2024-25, arriving by different paths.
Haviland, who won a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010, was promoted from the AHL after spending the previous two years as associate coach with the Cleveland Monsters, the Jackets’ top affiliate. He coordinated the power play and helped with forward deployment for both Evason and Bowness.
Ford, who worked with defensemen and coordinated the penalty kill under Bowness, arrived after an eight-year run as an AHL assistant with the Milwaukee Admirals. His history working with Mathieu Olivier in the Nashville Predators’ developmental system is what led Evason to giving the power forward a closer look and bigger role than he’d held under former coach Pascal Vincent.
Olivier responded by posting career-high numbers the past two years skating at right wing on the third line. His season-ending injury in a fight March 29 against the Boston Bruins turned out to be a key factor in the Jackets’ late collapse that kept them out of the playoffs.
Their special teams were also an issue, which likely factored into Ford and Haviland not returning. Overall, the Blue Jackets had a volatile season on power plays and penalty kills for each of their head coaches, which must be ironed out with more consistency.
Slumps on each while going 4-9-1 in their last 14 games also contributed to the Jackets’ fall from second in the Metropolitan Divisions to outside the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
They posted just a 9.4% success rate on power plays (3 of 32) under Haviland’s guidance while killing just 64.5% of opposing power plays (20 of 31) in that stretch under Ford’s coordination. Each of those percentages ranked 30th in the NHL over that span.
Augustitus, meanwhile, was 5 of 9 (56%) in his first season recommending coaching challenges to Evason and Bowness. He helped get four goals overturned on goaltender interference challenges and one for a missed offside entry that preceded a goal.
Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Rick Bowness and assistant coach Mike Haviland watch during the second period of the NHL hockey game at Nationwide Arena on March 21, 2026.
On the downside, four challenges he recommended weren’t successful and two led to opposing teams scoring on power plays awarded by the league’s automatic delay-of-game minor attached to failed challenges.
Augusatitus initially joined the Blue Jackets in 2018 and served as a video assistant from 2020-25 under longtime former video coach Dan Singleton, who wasn’t retained in April 2025. Singleton had been with the organization since its inception and Blue Jackets coaches were successful on a combined 21 of 26 challenges (81%) in his last three seasons.
Bowness, 71, inherited the Blue Jackets’ staff after taking over for Evason on Jan. 12 in a surprising switch that included the Waddell firing former assistant Steve McCarthy. The only three remaining on staff for next season, all with club options for next season, are goaltending coach Niklas Backstrom, skills coach Jared Boll and assistant video coach Cam Briere.
Bowness has extensive experience in the NHL coaching ranks as both a head coach and assistant, so drawing interesting in working on his staff won’t be an issue. A name to keep in mind, however, is Trent Vogelhuber, who’s in his eighth season coaching with the AHL’s Monsters, including the past four as head coach.
Vogelhuber, 38, has the Monsters poised for another run in league’s Calder Cup Playoffs, which they’ve qualified for in three straight seasons.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets shake up staff after season review