{"id":675282,"date":"2026-09-30T17:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/675282\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T17:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:12:17","slug":"columbus-blue-jackets-will-not-name-a-captain-this-season-six-players-expected-to-share-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/675282\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbus Blue Jackets will not name a captain this season; Six players expected to share \u2018A\u2019s\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> will not name a captain for the 2026-27 season, head coach Rick Bowness announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Instead the Blue Jackets are expected to see as many as six players share alternate captain duties this season. <\/p>\n

Veteran defenceman Zach Werenski<\/a> will permanently wear an \u201cA\u201d this season, while Charlie Coyle<\/a> and Mathieu Olivier<\/a> will wear the letter in home games this month, while Sean Monahan<\/a> and Cole Silinger will wear share duties on the road. They will then rotate with Coyle and Olivier getting road games in November.<\/p>\n

Bowness added that forward Adam Fantilli<\/a> is also expected to see the \u201cA\u201d on his jersey at some point this season. <\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets saw former captain Boone Jenner<\/a> depart in free agency as he signed a four-year, $23 million contract with the Washington Capitals<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Jenner served as Blue Jackets captain for five seasons, taking over from Nick Foligno<\/a> in 2021. <\/p>\n

Werenski was considered the most likely candidate to fill Jenner\u2019s role, but he is coming off a summer of speculation regarding his future with the team. <\/p>\n

The reigning Norris Trophy winner informed the Blue Jackets after last off-season that he was unsure about re-signing when his contract expires in 2028.<\/p>\n

TSN Hockey Insiders Darren Dreger and Pierre LeBrun reported on June 30<\/a> that the Blue Jackets had a deal in place to send Werenski to the Dallas Stars<\/a>, with speculation indicating that a package including defenceman Thomas Harley<\/a> would go the other way.<\/p>\n

Werenski, who has a full no-movement clause, ultimately stayed put. After a few days of drama, the team and player said released statements that they were moving forward together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was tough for about a week there,\u201d Werenski told reporters in August, explaining that there was some miscommunication between him, Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell and his agent Judd Moldaver. \u201cI felt like it was kind of misconstrued a little bit on how I felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn saying that, people have jobs to do, and, you know, they\u2019re getting their information from somewhere, but it definitely wasn\u2019t from me. The only thing I can go off is mine and Don\u2019s conversations, and we\u2019ve had great conversations since right when the season ended. I don\u2019t know what my agent and Don are talking about. Well, I do, to an extent. But certain things started to swirl and kind of snowballed, and it escalated to a spot that neither me nor Don intended. At least that\u2019s how I feel about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets will open their season on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Columbus Blue Jackets will not name a captain for the 2026-27 season, head coach Rick Bowness announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[4759,3644,5180,897,230,32986,5179,5,4,44758],"class_list":["post-675282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-apple-news","tag-blue-jackets","tag-bluejackets","tag-columbus","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-columbus-blue-jackets-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-29","tag-columbusbluejackets","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-zach-werenski-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8478460"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117361111411379662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}