COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets:
Item No. 1: Stay close
In the not-so-long-ago NHL, many franchises, including the Blue Jackets, treated their long-term injured players like pariahs. The players could come to the rink for therapy and rehabilitation and were expected to attend home games, but they were not in team meetings, pregame work-ups or postgame celebrations.
It was as if getting seriously injured was a sign of weakness or a personal failing, or that shame was somehow an aide to recovery.
“I know there were lots of teams where, if the (healthy) players were coming in from 9 to 11 in the morning, you were either here and gone before they arrived, or you came in during the afternoon when they were gone,” Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell said. “I don’t know about (Columbus), but I’ve seen it in other places.”
Thankfully, that mindset has mostly drifted from the game. There’s no trace of it in Columbus now under Waddell and new coach Dean Evason.
The Blue Jackets were hit hard by injuries early this season, which took two of their leadership pillars — captain Boone Jenner and veteran defenseman Erik Gudbranson — out of the dressing room.
Or did it?
Jenner and Gudbranson both had shoulder surgeries and just started a grueling rehab process together, sitting side by side most days on the training tables down the hall from the Blue Jackets dressing room.
But they’re also sitting in on team meetings, chatting with players one-on-one before and after practice, and trying to stay involved as much as possible. During games, most nights they sit in a booth at press level with Kent Johnson and prospect center Cayden Lindstrom, who is returning from a back injury.
“I want to be around the guys,” Jenner said. “If you’re not in the fight, not in the game, you don’t have the pulse of the room during (games). But I want to get as much as I can on practice days, talking with the guys and staying involved that way.
“We’re sitting in on video (review) when we can, staying engaged. It’s big. We’re all part of it. We see how hard the guys are working, and I hope they see how hard we’re working to get back and be out there with them.”
Great to see #CBJ captain Boone Jenner here signing at the Meet the Team event despite his long-term injury pic.twitter.com/X70LsevjWx
— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) October 24, 2024
Waddell has said he wants Jenner and Gudbranson to be around the club as much as they want. This isn’t new for him, either, he said. With his previous teams, Atlanta and Carolina, injured players were always treated like vested members of the team.
“I’ve never been into that,” Waddell said. “We want Boone and Guddy around, absolutely. If they want to travel with us, I’d have no problem with that. If you’re part of the team, you’re part of the team.
“They’re probably not going to stand up in a team meeting right now, but I see them every morning when I’m in the room, just having coffee with a guy or breakfast or whatever. If I’m a young guy, why wouldn’t I want to hang around Boone or Guddy?”
The club has not put a timeline on either player’s predicted return. Jenner had surgery on Oct. 10, while Gudbranson went under the knife five days later.
“I’m happy with the progress,” Jenner said. “I’d definitely like to be back this season to play. Right now my target date is as soon as possible. It’s going to be 2025, but as soon as possible.”
They won’t travel on the upcoming West Coast road trip through San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim and Seattle because they’re getting daily treatment from team doctors in Nationwide Arena. But they’ll jump right into the mix on the other side of the trip.
“We want them in our meetings, we want them to continue teaching and learning,” Evason said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re projected to come back tomorrow or a few months down the road, why not continue with them involved?
“It’s important they’re in there. They’re important parts of our hockey team, not only when they’re on the ice but off the ice. It’s good for them, but it’s good for us and our guys, too.”
The immediate challenge, Jenner joked, is he and Gudbranson not getting on each other’s nerves when spending hours upon hours together.
“It’s only been a couple of days (on the training table), but we’ve been laughing about that,” Jenner said. “We’ve spent a lot of time together anyway, but now this. We were joking the other day, wondering when we’re going to get sick of each other.
“I’m sure it’s coming quick.”
Item No. 2: Drawing nearer
The NHL’s Stadium Series game between the Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings in Ohio Stadium is now less than four months away, set for March 1, 2025.
The league’s “special events” staff is returning home now from the latest Global Series games in Finland, and the focus will soon shift to this year’s Winter Classic, set for New Year’s Eve in Wrigley Field between the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues.
“The NHL pretty much runs these games, and they’re pretty busy right now,” Waddell said. “Our people are having meetings to doing all of the work that they can do right now, but the league’s focus on the Stadium Series will probably pick up after the (Winter Classic) game.”
A big part of the anticipation for Blue Jackets fans, of course, is the reveal of the sweater they’ll wear in the game. Will the cannon play a big role? Will it be the swirled flag logo? Is Boomer going to be on the shoulders or sleeves?
The Blue Jackets considered designing the sweater themselves but quickly decided against it.
“You’d spend hundreds of thousands of dollars designing something like this when the NHL has those people on staff,” Waddell said. “So it just makes sense.”
The league and representatives of Fanatics, which will produce the sweater, met with the Blue Jackets to discuss prototypes and what certain elements should or could be represented. They signed off on a few elements, too. Now they wait for the league to bring them a final product.
Some are more patient than others. Asked when the Blue Jackets will be ready to show their new kit to the public, Waddell said: “Great question. We just had a goaltender ask me that the other day, because he wants to get working on a mask (to go with the rest of the uniform). I gave him the same answer I’ll give you: ‘We haven’t seen ’em yet. We don’t know.’”
Item No. 3: Snacks
• The Blue Jackets carried a modest three-game point streak (2-0-1) into the weekend. (They haven’t had a four-game point streak in more than a year.) But back-to-back humbling losses — 6-2 to Winnipeg on Friday and 7-2 in Washington on Saturday — have been eye-opening. They trailed 3-1 early in the second period to the Jets and 5-0 after the first period to the Capitals. “You get down early and all of a sudden you think you have to open it up and be a little bit more offensive,” Evason told reporters after Saturday’s loss. “You try to score goals as opposed to staying sound and simple and allowing that to translate into offense. We got away from playing proper and right and structured and all that good stuff.”
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• The Jackets flew back to Columbus after Saturday’s game and took an off day on Sunday. They’ll get back to practice on Monday before flying to California in advance of Tuesday’s game in San Jose. “We’ll skate and actually practice some detail stuff,” Evason said. “At the end of the day, we have to get back to competing and playing aggressive hockey. When you’re chasing it like we were the last couple of nights, you’re opening up and it doesn’t result in good, defensive hockey. Teams have been able to tack on (goals) after they’ve gotten up early.”
• Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski played his 497th career game in Saturday’s 7-2 loss in Washington. He’s due to play No. 500 on Nov. 10 in Anaheim, becoming the fourth Columbus defenseman to hit that mark. David Savard (597), Fedor Tyutin (553), and Rostislav Klesla (515) are the others. Jack Johnson, with 455 games in a Blue Jackets sweater, could become the fifth later this season.
• Werenski is also six points away from tying David Vyborny (317) for fifth on the Blue Jackets’ all-time points list. Vyborny had 113-204-317 in 543 games during the early days of the franchise. Werenski is at 93-218-311.
Zach Werenski is set to play his 500th NHL game on Nov. 10 in Anaheim. (Casey Gower / Imagn Images)
• While the Blue Jackets were preparing to play the Capitals, Waddell was driving from Columbus to Saginaw, Mich., to be inducted, along with his 1980-81 Saginaw Gears teammates, into the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame. Waddell was a defenseman on the long-ago International Hockey League team that won the IHL championship, the Turner Cup. “I haven’t seen most of these guys in 40-some years,” Waddell told The Athletic. “It was a great group of guys and a really talented team. But how I ended up there was a wild story.” Waddell was playing with the Houston Apollos, but the franchise folded around Christmas 1980. The Los Angeles Kings, who drafted Waddell in the seventh round (No. 111) in 1978, assigned him and two others to Saginaw. His best season in Saginaw was the following year when he totaled 26-69-95 in 77 games.
• Saginaw’s Hall of Fame is not the only one to induct Waddell. In 1993, he became a member of the Northern Michigan University Hall of Fame, as he starred there as a defenseman for four seasons in the late 1970s. He played 120 games for the Wildcats, totaling 52-120-172.
• Blue Jackets Sunday Gathering trivia question: Mathieu Olivier is tied for second on the club with four goals, but he also leads the Blue Jackets — and is tied for 16th in the NHL — with 36 hits already this season. Who owns the franchise record for most hits in a season? Extra points if you get the franchise’s all-time hits leader.
• Kent Johnson is no longer wearing a sling on his injured left shoulder, indicating his progress since being injured on Oct. 17 vs. Buffalo. The club has not announced a targeted return date, but he’ll be back before Jenner or Gudbranson. “He’s in the gym, which is a good sign,” Waddell said. “Now it’s just a time thing. He’s not going to be back in two weeks, but it’s not going to be two months, either.”
• There’s good news on Lindstrom, too. The No. 4 pick in June has been handled with kid gloves to make sure the back injury that cost him much of last season is completely healed before he returns, and it appears that is getting close … provided there are no setbacks. “He’s skating every day in full equipment,” Waddell said. “We keep pushing him harder and harder. He’s going to stay in Columbus and skate while the team is on the road trip. We’ll see where he is when we get back. If there are no setbacks, we’ll probably look to send him back to his junior team.” That news will be well-received in southeast Alberta, home to Lindstrom’s junior club, Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League.
• Lindstrom will continue skating with Blue Jackets coaches, but he’s not permitted to skate with the team until he’s signed to a contract. And what about that contract? Waddell indicated earlier this summer he’d be signed before or during training camp, but that was put on hold because he wasn’t able to take part. Here’s Waddell on the latest plan for Lindstrom’s entry-level deal: “The agent (Daren Hermiston) and I have continued to talk,” Waddell said. “We’ve agreed: Let’s get him back, let’s get him playing. They’re not pushing (for a deal), we’re not pushing. At some point, when he starts getting ready to play or maybe he’s played a few games, we’ll get him signed. The contract is a relatively easy contract to do.”
• Last Monday, Blue Jackets senior advisor John Davidson, a Hall of Fame broadcaster with the New York Rangers, stepped back into the booth to provide analysis next to play-by-play voice Steve Mears on FanDuel Sports Network. He’ll fill in for FDSN’s Jody Shelley whenever Shelley is occupied with Amazon Prime games on Mondays throughout the season. Twice already this season, Shelley has had to race back to Columbus from Canada on Tuesdays to be in place for a Blue Jackets game that night. It got us wondering who would step into the booth as an analyst if Shelley didn’t make it back in time. Turns out it’s Aaron Johnson, the former Blue Jackets defenseman who is now the team relations specialist for the club. Nobody’s rooting for Shelley to have smooth travel more than Johnson.
• Goaltender Jet Greaves had a rough start to the AHL season, allowing 11 goals on 66 shots in his first two starts. But he’s been much sharper in his last two outings, stopping 65 of 71 (.915), including 25 saves in a 4-2 win over Toronto on Saturday. The Monsters are back in action today, hosting Grand Rapids at 6:30 p.m.
• The Monsters’ early season goal leader is … Roman Ahcan? The 25-year-old, in his fourth pro season after signing out of Wisconsin in 2022, has 5-0-5 through seven games. He’s already more than halfway to his career high (nine), set last season.
• Trivia answer: Brandon Dubinsky has three of the franchise’s top five seasons for hits, including 248 in 80 games during the 2016-17 season. The all-time franchise leader is Jenner with 1,619.
(Top photo of Boone Jenner and Erik Gudbranson: Ben Jackson / NHLI via Getty Images)
