1:25 p.m.: It’s a one-year extension for Bowness, the team announced.
10:23 a.m.: The Blue Jackets have agreed to an extension with head coach Rick Bowness that will be announced later today, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports.
The news comes less than 48 hours following the end of Columbus’ season, which ended on the low side of a complete roller coaster. On Tuesday, following a 2-1 home loss to the Capitals in Game 82 – their sixth straight home loss to end the season – Bowness had some choice words for his club (via Joe Nugent of NBC4 Columbus):
All you gotta do is look at the stat sheet. Three hits, 23 giveaways. I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture. These guys, they don’t care – losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them. Like, how can you go out and play like that?
The Jackets’ season ended as disappointing as it began. On Jan. 12, they had a 19-19-7 record through 45 games and were last in the Eastern Conference. That prompted them to make a change behind the bench, bringing in Bowness out of retirement while firing Dean Evason, who was midway through his second season with the club after pulling them just short of a playoff berth last season. By March 23, their record under Bowness was 19-3-4, and they had pulled ahead of the Penguins for second place in the Metropolitan Division. Even just going .500 from there likely would have shored up the franchise’s first playoff trip since 2020.
It just wasn’t in the cards. The Blue Jackets won just two of their final 11 games and had eight regulation losses, bringing them down to 40-30-12. They ultimately finished a full six points back of the surging Flyers for the Metropolitan Division playoff cutoff and seven points back of the Senators for the second wild-card spot.
Now, Bowness will get the chance he wanted to change that culture. On the whole, his 21-11-5 record in 37 games was strong. The veteran of 840 games as a head coach and countless more as an assistant had stepped away from the game in 2024 following a two-year run with the Jets, leading that franchise back to the postseason after a 2021-22 campaign that fell far short of expectations.
Bowness, 71, has now been a head coach in parts of 15 NHL seasons. He has a Western Conference championship under his belt with the Stars in 2021 and has amassed a lifetime record of 331-419-90 (.448 points percentage), although that’s dragged down significantly by his time spent coaching the expansion Senators in the early 1990s.
Columbus’ advanced numbers this season suggest a team that could and should be a playoff competitor next spring. While they do have several notable unrestricted free agents pending, their core still revolves around several 25-or-younger players like Kirill Marchenko, Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, Cole Sillinger, Denton Mateychuk, and Jet Greaves. Since Bowness took over on Jan. 12, the Jackets ranked 10th in the league in Corsi share (51.5%), sixth in the league in shot share (53.1%), eighth in the league in expected goals share (53.0%), and sixth in the league in scoring chance share (53.2%) at 5-on-5.
The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline was first to report things were trending toward a Bowness extension.
That’s so sad.
son I’m crine
Bowness and Torts have a lot in common, except country of origin!
@Johnny Z – And the fact that Torts’ dead cat bounce is still going, but the steering wheel on the CBJ bus came off in Bowness’ hands.
Bowness made a mistake himself by insisting on playing Elvis as much as he did.
@PoisonedPens – Normally, only starting 29 games and having 30 total appearances shouldn’t result in the numbers Elvis put up. Let’s face it, a GAA of 3.40 and SV% of .883 would be expected of a guy in the range of 60 games played, or more, not half of that, and only one back-to-back set of games.
Elvis’ numbers are awful, nobody would play a goalie 60 games with a 3.40 and .883 save percentage, he would have long been sent down to the AHL. Jet Greaves ended up at 2.60 and .908 on the season yet Bowness only played him every other game at best between 1/13 and 3/17, when he finally relented and played him nearly every game between games 70-82. Yes, Bowness corrected his error, but for a team that missed the post-season by a couple of points, favoring Elvis between games 46 and 70 cost them that playoff spot
Madness if it was McLellan fired instead.
Shows alot of balls from the CBJ top brass and it’s ownership for maybe wanting a change of culture .. good for you Rick teach the overpaid babies.
I am puzzled: If Bowness’ stance was that the team wasn’t playing “the right way” when he was in charge, then what makes the CBJ front-office believe that bringing him back will result in anything changing? Other than their star players being even more resentful?
He also owned up to not doing it about a month ago. What if the star players get even more resentful? Start unloading them to other teams, and rid the locker room of the cancer. If they don’t want to play hard for him (and the fans), those players should look at the available coaches to see how bad things could get. Their nosedive was downright bizarre this year.
Good for Bones getting a final full year to coach
“I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture.” This is a coach who is holding his own feet to the fire, as well as the players. Good on him!