Blue Jackets head into offseason with a mixture of frustration and optimism

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — One message, but two different perspectives, because Don Waddell and Dean Evason have two different jobs.

On Friday, the day after the Columbus Blue Jackets ended a memorable and unique season with a 6-1 win over the New York Islanders in Nationwide Arena, Waddell, the general manager, and Evason, the coach, met with the media to discuss what happened and what’s ahead.

Evason knows full well that the Blue Jackets, which came one win short of making the playoffs, have a strong foundation and a bright future, but the frustration and anger of falling short were making all of that cloudy.

Asked if the Jackets were “further ahead” than he could have expected when he was hired by Columbus last summer, Evason said:

“Well, we’re not far enough, because we’re not (still) playing. We’re not preparing to play (in the Stanley Cup playoffs), so I want to make that clear. I know we’re going to get some accolades and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, we’re not in the playoffs. That was our first step, and we didn’t get there.

“Are we happy with the foundation we’re continuing to build? Sure. We’re extremely positive. But there’s negativity, too, because we’re not playing tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Waddell is required to have a bigger-picture view. He was as grumpy as anybody last Wednesday when the Montreal Canadiens’ win over his previous club, the Carolina Hurricanes, eliminated the Blue Jackets from the postseason after 81 games.

The Blue Jackets were expected to spend the final months of the season tracking the NHL draft lottery odds, not doing playoff math. He highlighted the character of the veterans and other players in the room, saying, “This was one of the strongest teams I’ve ever been involved with.”

He also noted that so many of the Blue Jackets’ blue-chip young players bloomed this season, driving the offensive outburst that kept the Jackets in the hunt.

“Our goal is always to make the playoffs,” Waddell said. “When you make the playoffs, you don’t want it to be a one-and-done situation. You want to make the playoffs, and then in a few years, we’ll stop talking about making the playoffs and it’ll be about winning the Cup.

“I truly believe, after what I witnessed this year, that we have most of the pieces in that locker room. There are going to be changes (this summer). There are unrestricted free agents and needs that we need to address. We’ll do everything in our power to address those needs.”

From GM Don Waddell and all of us to you, THANK YOU for showing up and cheering us on all season long ❤️

The countdown to our 25th anniversary season starts now! pic.twitter.com/5ISIED6VUv

— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) April 18, 2025

This was an educational season for Waddell. He was impressed with the Blue Jackets’ stable of young players — especially the dynamic forwards — but a full season and ground level, closely observing this group of players on the ice and off the ice, will inform the moves he makes this summer.

And there figures to be lots of moves, especially from the red line back.

The Blue Jackets set a franchise record with 267 goals this season, finishing eighth in the NHL. Most of the foundation up front is veterans in their prime or young players on the rise, so expect Waddell to, as he’s said, “fill in around the edges” up front.

It’s the defense and goaltending that could see the most changes. The Blue Jackets also allowed 267 goals, the eighth most in the league this season. Of the 16 clubs that qualified for the postseason, only one (Montreal, 261) allowed more than 240 goals.

The Blue Jackets have six prominent unrestricted free agents: forwards Justin Danforth, Sean Kuraly and James van Riemsdyk, and defensemen Dante Fabbro, Jack Johnson and Ivan Provorov. Waddell said contract talks with the players they want to keep were put on hold during the season’s stretch drive.

“I’ll sit with the coaches in the next couple of days,” Waddell said. “There are a few obvious ones we’d like to have back. We’ve talked about Provorov and Fabbro. There are some other guys we’d like to have back, but we haven’t made those determinations yet.

“Not making the playoffs, we have some time here. We can study the market and say, ‘If we don’t sign this player, we can replace him with player X or Z. All of that will happen over the next 4 to 6 weeks.”

Among defensemen, Fabbro and Provorov played top-four roles for the Blue Jackets this season, so losing either would be a big loss. Up front, Danforth and Kuraly played significant roles on the third and fourth lines and as penalty killers, while van Riemsdyk moved all over the line and finished with 16 goals.

The roster spot that probably demands the most attention is goaltending.

Elvis Merzlikins showed improvement for much of the season, but his game dipped dramatically in the final month of the season, just as the Blue Jackets were hanging in the race. In his final eight outings, including seven starts, he had an .865 save percentage and 4.24 goals-against average. Worse, there were on-ice temper tantrums that NHL goaltenders cannot exude.

Meanwhile, backup Daniil Tarasov earned no confidence with the coaching staff, going long stretches without games.

It wasn’t until the final week of the season, when Jet Greaves was recalled from AHL Cleveland, that goaltending became a position of strength. Greaves has a one-way NHL contract for next season, and his run of play would almost certainly give him a solid shot as the Blue Jackets’ backup next season.

But there is much to sort out here.

Merzlikins has two years remaining on a contract that pays him $5.4 million per season. Tarasov is a restricted free agent, meaning the Blue Jackets would need to extend a qualifying offer this summer to maintain his rights.

“If we don’t examine every position and dissect everything that we’ve done this year, we’re not doing our jobs,” Waddell said. “The goaltending numbers are not as good as we hoped they’d be. I said a while ago that I thought Elvis won us a lot more games than he lost us. We know there’s a lot of talent there, but we’re looking for more of a consistency factor.

“To say we’re just staying with the status quo … maybe that’s the way it ends up, but we have to examine this position like all of the positions and make decisions.”

Waddell has all of the tools necessary to make significant upgrades via trades and free-agent signings.

According to PuckPedia, the Blue Jackets will have a projected $41 million in salary cap space heading into the summer.

The Blue Jackets also have two first-round draft picks, including the Minnesota Wild’s first-round pick acquired last November in the deal that sent David Jiricek to the Wild. As of today, those two picks are 13th and 20th heading into the June draft.

Waddell has shown a willingness to pursue other teams’ restricted free agents via offer sheets, but they’d be slightly limited in what type of offer they could extend.

A restricted free agent lifted from another team’s roster with an offer sheet requires draft-pick compensation, and the Blue Jackets do not own their second-round pick this coming draft. That was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers two summers ago for Provorov.

Waddell was asked if he had the flexibility to buy out contracts of highly paid, underperforming players. Two leap to mind: Merzlikins ($5.4 million per season through 2026-27) and defenseman Damon Severson ($6.25 million per season through 2030-31), who was a healthy scratch 10 times this season.

“That’s not something we’re looking at,” Waddell said. “I can’t say how the summer is going to play out, but, as of now, we haven’t talked about it.”

However, one thing is clear. Waddell says he didn’t come to Columbus to oversee a roster rebuild. He wants to win immediately. The Blue Jackets don’t need sweeping changes to become competitive. Expect Waddell to be aggressive in helping them take another big step forward.

“There will be some challenges, but every summer there are deals to be made. It’s just a matter of what pieces you’re willing to give up for it,” he said.

(Photo of Ivan Provorov: Ben Jackson / Getty Images)

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