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Blue Jackets Reassign Luca Pinelli

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The Blue Jackets announced they’ve ended center Luca Pinelli’s emergency recall and reassigned him to AHL Cleveland. The team now has an open roster spot, which will likely go to captain Boone Jenner in the coming days. He’s on injured reserve with an upper-body issue and has been out since Nov. 11, but head coach Dean Evason said last weekend that Jenner is close to a return. That won’t come tonight against the Red Wings, per Jeff Svoboda of NHL.com, but could come before Saturday’s tilt against the Panthers.

Because of injuries to Jenner, Kirill Marchenko, and Mathieu Olivier, the 20-year-old Pinelli had suited up in Columbus’ last three games. With Marchenko returning to the lineup tonight after a four-game absence, though, Pinelli’s presence on the active roster was no longer required to ensure the Blue Jackets had 12 healthy forwards. Since he was recalled under emergency conditions, the Jackets either had to return him to Cleveland today or convert the recall to a standard one.

Pinelli, a 5’9″ sniper, is in his first professional season. Columbus drafted him in the fourth round in 2023. He’s the fourth player from that round to make his NHL debut, following the Sharks’ Luca Cagnoni, the Canucks’ Ty Mueller, and the Canadiens’ Florian Xhekaj. The Ontario native has had a rather seamless transition to the professional ranks. With five goals in 13 games for Cleveland, he’s tied for the team lead. He’s added five assists for 10 points to rank third on the club behind more experienced call-up options Mikael Pyyhtia and Luca Del Bel Belluz.

Through his first three NHL games, Pinelli got a longer leash than expected, averaging 13:48 of ice time per game. He got top-six deployment at even strength, skating on Sean Monahan’s right wing. That’s a clear indication of where the organization views his ceiling, and given his small frame and lack of physical habits, he’ll likely need to produce enough to warrant a top-six job if he’s going to carve out an NHL career. He didn’t record a point in those minutes but was active with the puck, recording 10 shot attempts – six of which got on goal. Columbus outshot opponents 20-18 and outchanced them 25-17 with Pinelli on the ice at 5-on-5.

Pinelli’s usage for the remainder of the season at the NHL level will likely be sparse, if it even exists at all. A full season of adapting to the pro game in the AHL is a virtual necessity for a mid-to-late-round pick. Nonetheless, he’s done enough in the early going in 2025-26 to put himself on the long list for a roster spot next season.

Blue Jackets Place Mathieu Olivier On IR, Recall Luca Del Bel Belluz

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The Columbus Blue Jackets announced that Mathieu Olivier has been placed on injured reserve, and forward Luca Del Bel Belluz has been recalled from AHL Cleveland on an emergency basis. Thankfully the team will have some time to settle, as they are not in action again until Thursday when they host Detroit. 

Olivier is thought to be week-to-week, absent since leaving mid-game against Washington on November 24th with an apparent upper-body injury. The 28-year-old epitomizes the modern-day grinder. Undrafted out of the QMJHL, he caught on with the Predators organization but never broke out. After the 2021-22 season, Olivier got a fresh start as Columbus gave up a fourth round pick for the winger, which at the time felt like a lot for a grinder with limited NHL upside. Instead, Olivier established himself as a Jacket in 2022-23, playing in 66 games and setting career highs across the board. He took a massive step last season with 18 goals and 32 points, earning a well deserved six-year extension worth $3MM per season. 

With three goals in 23 games so far, the scoring touch has fallen a bit, but once healthy, Olivier will return as a vital cog in the Jackets’ bottom six, a role he will likely hold for years to come. 

On the other hand, Del Bel Belluz, 22, is a top prospect for Columbus after being selected in the second round of the 2022 draft. The Ontario native’s path to the NHL has been a bit clouded with the additions of veterans such as Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood, along with their group of exciting young forwards, but he has certainly held his own in the AHL. Del Bel Belluz has 11 points in as many games with Cleveland this year, and had 53 in 61 games last season. The center got into seven games with the Jackets already this season, but in a limited fourth line deployment, it wasn’t the best scenario for the youngster. 

Now, with Olivier down for the time being, Del Bel Belluz has another crack to make his mark, with seven NHL points to his name at this point, and help the Blue Jackets close out 2025 on the right note. 

Werenski, Monahan Miss Practice

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  • Columbus Blue Jackets team reporter Jeff Svoboda reported today that veterans Zach Werenski and Sean Monahan did not participate in today’s practice, and that the two players “have been battling through some things of late.” Werenski has been managing an upper-body injury, but thus far it hasn’t impacted his ability to dress for games. Werenski is Columbus’ most important player, skating in 26:30 per game with 24 points in 25 contests. Monahan dealt with an upper-body injury earlier in November, but it’s unclear at this time if his current ailment is related to what he was managing earlier this month. The 31-year-old pivot has had a slower-than-expected start to 2025-26, scoring just 11 points in 25 games. He scored 57 points in 54 games last season and was awarded the Bill Masterton Trophy for 2024-25.

Latest On Boone Jenner

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Last night, Ryan Novozinsky of njdotcom asked Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe for an update on defenseman Brett Pesce. As shared by Novozinsky, while the key defenseman is progressing, he is still not close to a return, and remains considered week-to-week. 

The blueliner has now been absent for over a month after blocking a shot against the Avalanche and leaving mid-game. The initial thought was at least one month, so the update is not great, but it appears the veteran is on the right track for a return by January. While Pesce never jumps out on the stat sheet, anyone remotely familiar with his game knows his importance as a top shutdown defender. Prior to going down, he and Luke Hughes were a formidable pair, complementing each other’s games perfectly.

Impressively, New Jersey has battled through the adversity of losing Pesce, along with Jack Hughes and others, remaining atop the Metropolitan, especially thanks to a 9-1-1 home record. 21-year-old Simon Nemec has stepped up of late, being trusted with high minutes from Keefe, and starting to break through from his second-overall selection billing. However, Pesce’s absence is a major hole, and if the Devils are to hold off the Hurricanes along with the many other formidable teams in the division, they will need their steady leader back, placing their elite young defenders Hughes and Nemec back into more favorable roles. 

Elsewhere across the league:

  • Blue Jackets Head Coach Dean Evason told Jeff Svoboda, Columbus’ team reporter, that Boone Jenner is “close” to returning, but likely not tomorrow against the Devils. The captain practiced today but is being phased back gradually. Jenner landed on IR two weeks ago with an upper-body-injury, and it was thought to be longer term, so a return by early December is favorable. The 32-year-old career long Jacket has 10 points in 16 games, and while a Monday return seems out of the cards, Jenner could return on Thursday as Columbus hosts Detroit. 
  • Insider Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff confirmed that Utah forward Logan Cooley appears to have “dodged a bullet”, with an initial finding of a quad contusion. Although further testing will be done, it seems to confirm last night’s sentiment that a serious injury was avoided. Cooley’s knee-on-knee collision with Alexei Toropchenko immediately caught the concern of the league, as he had to be helped off the ice, earning Toropchenko a match penalty. In an update from Matthew DeFranks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Toropchenko will not face supplemental discipline for the hit. Thankfully it appears the dynamic young star Cooley, with 23 points in 26 games, will not be sidelined for long. 

Blue Jackets Recall Luca Pinelli On Emergency Basis

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The Blue Jackets have recalled forward Luca Pinelli from AHL Cleveland under emergency conditions, the team announced. Since Pinelli isn’t waiver-eligible, there’s no extra privilege granted to Columbus by performing his recall on an emergency basis. They had an open roster spot, so no corresponding move is required.

Pinelli will be on hand for tomorrow’s game against the Maple Leafs and could make his NHL debut depending on the status of wingers Kirill Marchenko and Mathieu Olivier. Marchenko sat out yesterday’s loss to the Capitals with a muscle strain and is day-to-day, while Olivier left that contest with an upper-body injury after the first period. If neither is available, Pinelli would draw in if they’re to continue dressing 12 forwards and six defensemen. With the newly signed Brendan Smith also on the roster, he’s an option to play as well if they want to dress seven defensemen or deploy him as a forward, as Smith’s done in the past.

Pinelli, 20, lands his first NHL recall early in his first professional season. The 5’9″ center was a fourth-round pick in 2023 out of OHL Ottawa. He produced well over a point per game for the 67’s post-draft and found himself on Team Canada at this year’s World Juniors, posting a goal and an assist in five games on his first go-around for the national club.

While his size will be a concern for his long-term adjustment to the NHL, he hasn’t let it impede his adjustment from the juniors to the minors one bit. He hasn’t missed a beat since first reporting to Cleveland late last season after the 67’s’ campaign ended. In 22 regular-season and playoff games since making his pro debut, Pinelli’s put up a 7-9–16 scoring line with a +3 rating. That includes five goals and 10 points in 13 games to begin 2025-26.

That said, he’s something of an under-the-radar name in one of the league’s deeper systems. His lack of physicality, plus some discipline issues in juniors, limited his ranking to No. 14 in Columbus’ pool over the offseason by Elite Prospects. Still, it’s a good sign that he’s been able to hold his own out of the gate as he makes the first significant leap in his development.

Blue Jackets Reassign Dysin Mayo

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The Blue Jackets announced they’ve reassigned defenseman Dysin Mayo to AHL Cleveland. Since he’s been rostered for fewer than 30 days and played under 10 games since last clearing waivers, he didn’t need them today. They’re now left with an open spot on their active roster.

Mayo was up as a stopgap No. 7 option with Erik Gudbranson on injured reserve. However, he was made redundant yesterday when Columbus converted veteran Brendan Smith’s tryout with Cleveland into a two-way NHL deal and added him to the roster.

Mayo signed a two-way deal with the Jackets over the offseason. He was recalled for one game last month during a previous Gudbranson injury, but was then summoned again on Oct. 30. He’s remained on Columbus’ roster since, but has been scratched for 12 out of 13 games. He entered the lineup back on Nov. 5 against the Flames for his first NHL appearance since February 2023, logging three shots on goal and a -1 rating in 7:33 of ice time.

He’s a defensive specialist, even in the minors, but he’d been on something of a hot streak with four assists through his first five games for Cleveland. He’ll look to resume that momentum now that he’s returning to the minors for the foreseeable future. The 29-year-old is now in his 10th full professional season and is on his third organization after a lengthy stint with the Coyotes, who drafted him in the fifth round in 2014, and a couple of seasons in the Golden Knights’ system.

Snapshots: Werenski, Olivier, Karmanov

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The Columbus Blue Jackets suffered a tough 5-1 loss to the Washington Capitals on Monday night, and a further blow was dealt to the team when veteran Zach Werenski was forced to leave the game due to an injury. The club announced tonight that Werenski suffered an upper-body injury during the game, and after, Columbus head coach Dean Evason told the media (including NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti) that it was too early to tell the extent of the injury. Evason did say that the team will evaluate Werenski’s status tomorrow.

Werenski has a strong argument as the Blue Jackets’ best player. The 28-year-old is a Norris Trophy-caliber all-around defenseman who scored 82 points in 81 games last season and finished as the Norris Trophy runner-up. He has 21 points through 23 games this season, good for second on the team in scoring. He plays just over 26 minutes per night, and is relied-upon by Evason in just about every key situation. While it’s too early to tell if Werenski’s injury is anything serious, if the Blue Jackets have to go without their most important player for any extended amount of time, that absence would likely deal a significant amount of damage to their ability to keep pace in a hotly-contested Eastern Conference Wild Card race.

Other notes from around the hockey world:

  • Werenski wasn’t the only Blue Jackets player to leave the game with an upper-body injury; the team also announced that forward Mathieu Olivier would miss the rest of the game with his own upper-body ailment. While Olivier isn’t nearly as crucial to the Blue Jackets’ lineup as Werenski is, his loss would also be felt by the team should his injury sideline him for any notable period of time. Olivier is one of the game’s more intimidating physical wingers, and he also showed some goal-scoring touch last season, scoring a career-high 18 times. The Blue Jackets will evaluate Olivier’s status tomorrow, as they will with Werenski.
  • The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler reported tonight that prospect blueliner Alexander Karmanov will sign with the OHL’s North Bay Battalion tomorrow, registering as the team’s third import player. Karmanov, 17, is notable as he stands 7’0″ tall and weighs 278 pounds, according to Elite Prospects’ listing. There are no defensemen in the NHL (or AHL, for that matter) with that kind of size profile, and in an NHL that has become increasingly focused on size and strength for defensemen, that alone is enough to help Karmanov garner interest as a pro prospect. A Penn State commit who is repped by Dan Milstein’s Gold Star Sports Management, Karmanov’s reported signing in the OHL gives him a greater platform to raise his stock as a prospect in advance of the 2026 NHL Draft, which he is eligible to be selected in.

Blue Jackets Sign Brendan Smith To Two-Way Deal

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The Blue Jackets signed Brendan Smith to a two-way contract, according to a team announcement. Since he was not placed on waivers today, he will be rostered for tonight’s game against the Capitals. He had played the first several weeks of the season on a professional tryout with AHL Cleveland after being released from a camp tryout with Columbus.

While it’s a delayed resolution, Smith finally gets the NHL contract he’d hoped for ever since signing his PTO with the Jackets back in August. It was the first time in 14 NHL seasons that Smith had needed to settle for a tryout. Because he was already playing in the Jackets’ system, today’s news essentially amounts to a call-up. The past few weeks in Cleveland marked his first minor-league action since being waived by the Rangers in February 2018. In 11 games for the Monsters, the depth defenseman recorded one assist with eight penalty minutes.

Smith was never known for his offense at the NHL level, but he was nearly a point-per-game player in college and had good scoring lines in the AHL in the early stages of his career with the Red Wings organization. That makes his lack of production in Cleveland underwhelming, particularly with his -5 rating being tied for the second-worst on the team.

Nonetheless, the 36-year-old is getting another shot on an NHL roster. Columbus has been down a veteran option for most of the season, with Erik Gudbranson missing all but four games with upper-body and hip injuries. Dysin Mayo has been rostered as a seventh defenseman for a good chunk of the campaign as a result, but they’ve shown an extreme reluctance to play the righty. He’s only appeared once despite being rostered for 13 games.

The Blue Jackets presumably desired a more experienced option for the press box and to challenge the struggling Jake Christiansen for third-pairing minutes, and they’ll get that in Smith. A first-round pick by Detroit back in 2007, he’s gone on to appear in 726 NHL games with 39 goals, 105 assists, and 144 points with a -15 rating. If he gets into a game for the Blue Jackets, they’ll be his sixth NHL team and his third in the past three years following recent stints with the Devils and Stars.

Blue Jackets Recall Brendan Gaunce, Reassign Luca Del Bel Belluz

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The Blue Jackets announced that they’ve elevated forward Brendan Gaunce from the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters. Center Luca Del Bel Belluz is headed back down to Cleveland in the corresponding move.

Del Bel Belluz was initially brought up earlier in the month after an injury scare to Sean Monahan, although he didn’t end up missing any time. They still opted to give the 22-year-old pivot a crack at NHL minutes, something that became more feasible after captain Boone Jenner landed on injured reserve last week. Del Bel Belluz had gotten into seven of the last eight games, but rarely as more than a fourth-line center. He averaged only 9:35 of ice time, limited to one assist while winning just 10 of his 34 faceoffs for a 26.4 FOW%.

Given Del Bel Belluz’s skillset as an offensive needle-mover, that wasn’t the best choice for his long-term development, nor was he the best fit for the role the Jackets were asking him to play. The 2022 second-round pick more accurately flashed his ceiling during a 15-game call-up last year, when he rattled off two goals and six assists for eight points in nearly 14 minutes of ice time per game.

With Del Bel Belluz not getting that type of deployment this time around, they’ll opt to let him resume playing a starring role in Cleveland while recalling the vastly more experienced Gaunce to serve as a fourth-line stopgap. The 31-year-old was reacquired by the Blue Jackets via trade from the Wild over the offseason after previously spending three seasons in Columbus and Cleveland from 2021-22 through 2023-24. Gaunce brings a 13-16–29 scoring line with a -17 rating in 189 career NHL appearances to the role.

Blue Jackets Place Boone Jenner On Injured Reserve

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For the second time in as many seasons, the Columbus Blue Jackets will be without their captain for some time. The Blue Jackets announced that Boone Jenner has been placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury.

Jenner isn’t expected to have a short stay on the IR either. Head coach Dean Evason indicated that the injury wasn’t expected to be a short term one. It’s more of the same for Jenner, who hasn’t played in a full season since the 2016-17 campaign.

The injury stems from the Blue Jackets’ contest on Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken. Despite winning the game by one goal, Jenner left the contest after one shift in the second period.

It’s an unfortunate blow to Columbus and Jenner. He had gotten off to a solid start to the 2025-26 season, scoring three goals and 10 points through his first 16 games. After returning from an extended injury last season, Jenner had scored 10 goals and 29 points in his last 42 games.

That kind of production over the last little while, as well as his career performances, has made Jenner a speculative trade candidate of late. Unfortunately, if the Blue Jackets had any idea of trading Jenner in his contract year, the new injury concern has a chance of impacting their potential return.

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