Todd McLellan Believed To Be The Contender For Blue Jackets Coaching Vacancy

With the draft coming up later this week and free agency beginning soon after, the Blue Jackets will likely want to fill their head coaching vacancy before then.  To that end, ESPN’s John Buccigross reports (Twitter link) that a decision is expected soon while Todd McLellan is gaining traction to be their next bench boss.

McLellan would certainly represent an experienced option taking over from Pascal Vincent who was in his first year running the bench this past season.  In their search for a new GM, the Blue Jackets were placing a lot of emphasis on experience and it appears Don Waddell is placing a similar emphasis on that with his coaching hire.

The 56-year-old started 2023-24 with Los Angeles where he was in his fifth season with the team.  However, they struggled through the first half of the year, resulting in his being dismissed in early February with assistant Jim Hiller taking over on an interim tag (which was later lifted in the spring).

McLellan also has long coaching stints under his belt with San Jose and Edmonton.  All told, he has been behind the bench for 1,144 games, 24th-most in NHL history.  He hasn’t had a lot of playoff success over that stretch with his teams playing to a 42-46 record over nine postseason appearances.

Of course, playoff success shouldn’t be on the mind of Waddell, at least in the short term.  The Blue Jackets have missed the postseason in four straight years and have finished at the basement of the Metropolitan for two straight years.  With a particularly young core group, the focus in the near future will be making the most of player development and trying to get Columbus to be more competitive.

With that in mind, McLellan could very well be the right fit to help lead the Blue Jackets through their rebuild and ideally towards trying to push for a playoff spot.  Whether it’s him or someone else, a decision on their next head coach should be coming soon.