D Denton Mateychuk (Blue Jackets) – Although he didn’t share similar point production to Hutson, Mateychuk had a quietly productive campaign for the Columbus Blue Jackets, scoring four goals and 13 points in 45 games, averaging 18:02 of ice time a night. Much of Mateychuk’s value came on the defensive side of the puck, securing a 91.4% on-ice save percentage at even strength despite starting 57.4% of his shifts in the defensive zone.
Blue Jackets Rumors
Blue Jackets Expected To Pursue Mitch Marner
With more than $40MM to spend and only a few notable holes to fill on the roster, the Columbus Blue Jackets will have difficulty being outspent on players this summer. Keeping that in mind, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic expects General Manager Don Waddell to be very involved in Mitch Marner’s market.
Unfortunately, the Blue Jackets’ ability to spend won’t alienate all of their competition this offseason, as a report from yesterday indicated the Anaheim Ducks are contemplating a record-breaking offer for Marner’s services. Still, Columbus has even more financial flexibility than Anaheim, making their pitch the most worthwhile part.
In his article, Portzline hinted at the fact that the Blue Jackets have pursued Marner before. After the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs, when the Blue Jackets eliminated the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Tampa Bay Lightning in the opening round, the team’s top two talents, Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, departed via free agency.
Columbus’s General Manager at the time, Jarmo Kekäläinen, immediately contacted the Toronto Maple Leafs when Marner’s entry-level contract expired that same summer. Portzline doesn’t believe the Blue Jackets’ trade interest got to the point of exchanging names, as Marner signed a six-year, $65.41MM contract closer to training camp.
If Columbus ultimately signs Marner, they’ll have two of the most defensively responsible wingers in the league. Marner has finished in the top 10 of Selke Trophy voting in three out of the past five years, while Kirill Marchenko finished with a higher CorsiFor% and on-ice save percentage compared to Marner this season at even strength.
Bringing in Marner would also allow the Blue Jackets to bring in another star talent since the tragic death of Johnny Gaudreau on August 29th of last summer. Columbus embarked on a remarkably competitive season in honor of their late teammate, and adding a player of Marner’s talent would certainly boost the team’s morale level.
Unlike some of the other teams with an abundance of cap space this summer, the Blue Jackets would allow Marner to stay on a competitive roster, while also having a much smaller media presence compared to Toronto.
Ultimately, only time will tell what crest Marner will wear on his jersey next season. He won’t have a shortage of suitors, as several teams outside of Anaheim and Columbus have the available capital to make a run at his services.
Blue Jackets Notes: Provorov, Danforth, Keskinen
The Blue Jackets met with the representative for pending UFA defenseman Ivan Provorov at the combine this week, relays Aaron Portzline of The Athletic (subscription link). Projected as one of the top blueliners to hit the open market next month, he’s in a position to realistically command a max-term contract which would be seven years with another team or eight if Columbus signs him by the end of June.
However, Portzline notes that thus far, GM Don Waddell has been prioritizing a shorter-term agreement with the 28-year-old. Presumably, that offer would come with a higher AAV compared to a max-term offer but with over $40MM in cap room, per PuckPedia, they can safely afford to overpay if it got them a more desired term on the deal. Provorov had 33 points in 81 games this season while logging over 23 minutes a night and at this point, it’s unclear if he’d be amenable to a shorter-term pact.
More from Portzline’s piece on the Blue Jackets:
- Pending UFA forward Justin Danforth has switched agents. Previously represented by Puck Agency’s Jay Grossman, his new agent is Newport’s Pat Morris. Danforth played in 61 games this season, notching nine goals and 12 assists while also playing center on a full-time basis for the first time in his career. Coming off a one-year, $1.1MM deal, Danforth should be able to beat that on the open market next month if he doesn’t wind up re-signing with Columbus which Portzline notes is the veteran’s preferred outcome.
- The contract that prospect Oiva Keskinen received from the Blue Jackets last month contains a European Assignment Clause for next season. The 21-year-old is expected to get a chance to crack the NHL roster but he can trigger the return to Tappara in Finland if he doesn’t break camp with Columbus. A seventh-round pick in 2023, Keskinen had 15 goals and 20 assists in 59 regular season Liiga games but was limited to just a single assist in nine playoff outings.
Contract Negotiations Begin Between Blue Jackets, Daniil Tarasov
According to a new article from Daria Tuboltseva of RG, the Columbus Blue Jackets have started contract negotiations with Daniil Tarasov. Tarasov’s three-year, $3.15MM contract concluded at the end of the 2024-25 campaign.
The Blue Jackets are in the driver’s seat for the negotiations. After a quality 2023-24 campaign, Tarasov had the worst season of his brief NHL career this past season, making him a candidate to be non-tendered this offseason if Tarasov doesn’t agree to Columbus’s offer.
In her interview with Tarasov, Tuboltseva quoted Tarasov saying, “Negotiations are ongoing. My agent is talking to the team’s management. There’s nothing concrete yet — just early discussions. The NHL season is still going, and the final is ahead. A lot will be decided later.”
It’s an interesting revelation given that Tarasov lost his role as the team’s backup toward the end of the season in favor of younger netminder Jet Greaves. The Russian goaltender concluded the 2024-25 season with a 7-10-2 record in 20 games with a .881 SV% and 3.54 GAA.
While already having Elvis Merzlikins and Greaves signed through next year, one could reasonably assume that the Blue Jackets will offer Tarasov no more than a league-minimum contract on a one-year deal. Tarasov didn’t give them confidence to re-sign him to a multi-year deal, and it may be the most he could find on the open market, anyway.
Still, that would be a healthy pay cut for Tarasov who made an AAV of $1.05MM for the last three years. He has not indicated if he’d return to the KHL if he doesn’t re-sign with Columbus, but it may be the most advantageous option for his professional career.
Sean Monahan Wins 2025 Masterton Trophy
The NHL has announced the winners of a few awards and trophies this week, including the Selke and Ted Lindsay. Today, the league announced that Blue Jackets center Sean Monahan is this year’s recipient of the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, awarded annually “to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.”
Monahan, 30, signed a five-year contract with Columbus in free agency last season. One of the reasons for doing so was having a chance to reunite with his close friend and longtime Flames linemate, Johnny Gaudreau. Yet Monahan’s and the entire NHL season were overshadowed when Gaudreau and his brother Matthew were struck and killed by a drunk driver while cycling near their New Jersey home in late August, weeks before training camp began.
The Blue Jackets responded by staying in the playoff race until the final days of the regular season, a far better finish than anyone expected. That success was fueled in large part by Monahan, who recorded a career-high 0.70 assists per game and 1.06 points per game while also earning Selke votes for the second time in his 12-year career. He logged 57 points in 54 games, on pace to lead Columbus in scoring if not for missing nearly 30 games in the second half of the season with a wrist injury.
This year’s other finalists were Wild goaltender Marc-André Fleury, whose 2024-25 season was the last of a Hall-of-Fame career spanning 21 seasons, and Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog, who returned to the ice in the postseason after a nearly three-year absence due to a knee injury.
While the 2025 NHL Awards ceremony will be held before Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final, the league has been surprising the winners of other honors in the days leading up to it.
Blue Jackets’ Cayden Lindstrom Commits To Michigan State
June 5: Lindstrom confirmed to Portzline he’ll play for the Spartans next season (article link). Lindstrom returned to play four games for Medicine Hat in the WHL finals en route to a championship, recording two goals and two assists, but went pointless in three Memorial Cup games for the Tigers.
March 29: Things haven’t gone as planned for Blue Jackets prospect Cayden Lindstrom this season. Felled by a back injury dating back to before the draft last year, he has yet to suit up in 2024-25 and isn’t expected to. But instead of remaining with WHL Medicine Hat for 2025-26, it appears he’ll be on the move, as Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that Lindstrom is likely to play at Michigan State next season.
Lindstrom was the fourth overall pick back in June and while many high draft picks sign their entry-level deals in the days and weeks after that, he was a notable exception. As a result, he remains eligible to play in the NCAA next season.
It’s a decision that might seem a bit surprising at first, but given his injury history, it does make some sense. Major junior teams play 68 games per season and after missing all of this year, more game volume might seem like the way to go. Meanwhile, the NCAA regular season is only 34 games long which will allow Lindstrom more time for off-ice workouts and time with the training staff to try to limit or prevent any possible recurrence of this back trouble.
Last season, Lindstrom played well in limited duty, notching 27 goals and 19 assists in just 32 games for the Tigers which helped make him one of the first players off the board despite the injury concerns. While that’s not necessarily enough to say that he has nothing left to prove at that level, that type of dominance suggests that he might be better suited playing against older competition which he’ll get at MSU should he officially join them. He can’t do so until at least August 1st.
Portzline notes that several other schools, including Ohio State, also pursued Lindstrom’s services. Columbus likely would have preferred that he landed there to keep him closer to the team but instead, Lindstrom will join a Spartans program that had eight NHL-drafted prospects on it this season, some of which could soon be making the jump to the pros.
Free Agent Focus: Columbus Blue Jackets
Free agency is now under a month away, and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July, while many teams also have key restricted free agents to re-sign. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Blue Jackets.
Key Restricted Free Agents
F Dmitri Voronkov – A number of players had breakout campaigns for the Jackets in 2024-25. Voronkov wasn’t chief among them, but he was up there. After a strong rookie campaign last year, the 24-year-old received loads of top-line deployment at even strength with Kirill Marchenko on his opposite wing and either Adam Fantilli or Sean Monahan down the middle. His 23 goals and 47 points didn’t explode off the page, but it’s still serviceable top-six output and a steady improvement on 2023-24’s 18-16–34 scoring line in two more appearances. Voronkov averaged 16:47 per game, a figure that shouldn’t see much variation heading into next year. The 6’5″, 227-lb winger also played as you’d expect given his frame – 71 hits and quite good defensive impacts. With some room to grow, Columbus is likely looking at a long-term deal in the $6MM range annually. A bridge deal, if they go that route, should be more attainable in the high $3MMs or low $4MMs in terms of AAV.
D Jordan Harris – Harris was picked up from the Canadiens in last summer’s Patrik Laine trade. He’d become a fine bottom-pairing and even fringe top-four option with Montreal last year, but the 24-year-old spent most of the year as the odd man out on the Columbus blue line, even with Erik Gudbranson missing most of the season. After posting just five points and a minus-one rating in 33 games while averaging a minuscule 11:23 per game, there’s reason to believe the Blue Jackets don’t have an appetite to issue him his $1.4MM qualifying offer. The 2018 third-round pick could be on the open market this summer as a result.
G Daniil Tarasov – Like Harris, Tarasov is a non-tender candidate later this month. The 26-year-old Russian could still have some untapped upside, but a roster crunch in net likely means he won’t discover it in Columbus. He was superseded as a top-two option for the Jackets down the stretch by the younger Jet Greaves, who looks to serve in tandem with Elvis Merzlikins next year. He struggled when given the chance to start in 2024-25, posting a 7-10-2 record, .881 SV%, and 3.54 GAA in 20 appearances. He’s also due a seven-figure qualifying offer ($1.26MM) and has arbitration rights, neither of which work in his favor for being retained as a No. 3 option.
Other RFAs: F Hunter McKown, F Mikael Pyyhtia, D Ole Julian Bjorgvik-Holm, D Cole Clayton, D Daemon Hunt, D Samuel Knazko
Key Unrestricted Free Agents
D Ivan Provorov – Some extensions in the back half of the season vaulted Provorov into being the consensus No. 3 UFA available this summer on the blue line behind Aaron Ekblad and former Blue Jacket Vladislav Gavrikov. The 28-year-old has been a fine fit in Columbus since his acquisition two years ago, though, and there could still be a long-term fit on the left side behind Zach Werenski, even with top prospect Denton Mateychuk emerging as an NHL option. He managed a +11 rating and 33 points in 82 games this year, his first time in the black since 2020-21, but his possession metrics (47.9 CF%, 45.6 xGF% at even strength) are still lacking for someone logging over 23 minutes per game. Regardless, a weak UFA market on defense and his usability in heavy minutes likely mean the Jackets will need to offer a long-term deal in the $7MM range per season to keep him around.
D Dante Fabbro – Provorov isn’t the only core member of the Jackets’ top four at risk of hitting the open market. Claimed off waivers from the Predators early in the season, Fabbro was a revelation and quickly stapled himself alongside Werenski in top-pairing duties. It wouldn’t be particularly surprising to see Columbus pour more resources into re-upping Fabbro, who’s their best right-shot option at present ahead of Gudbranson and Damon Severson, than Provorov. His brief track record in extended usage will likely limit his value to under $5MM annually. After the waiver claim, Fabbro had 26 points and a +23 rating in 62 games for the Jackets while controlling 54.4% of expected goals alongside Werenski, per MoneyPuck.
F Sean Kuraly – The Ohio native came home on a four-year, $10MM contract in free agency in 2021. He responded with a career-high 30 points in 77 games, but the checking center’s offense has steadily dwindled since then. While still an alternate captain, his average ice time of 11:46 in 2024-25 was the lowest of his NHL career in a full season. He still managed 17 points and a respectable minus-four rating in heavy defensive deployment, though, and he finished third on the team with 163 hits. The 32-year-old remains a good fourth-line piece and could find a shorter-term deal to stay in Columbus at a slight discount on his current $2.5MM cap hit.
F Justin Danforth – After spending most of his pro career in the minors or overseas, Danforth made his NHL debut with the Jackets in his age-28 season four years ago. Now 32, the diminutive but physical forward posted a 9-12–21 scoring line in 61 games last year while averaging a career-high 14:23 per game. He’s primarily a winger but can flex in at center. Still, he’s the most expendable among their more pertinent UFAs and could be the one out the door to make roster space for a big splash or an up-and-coming prospect making the jump. He’s likely in the market for a multi-year but sub-$2MM cap hit contract this summer.
Other UFAs: F Christian Fischer, F Trey Fix-Wolansky, F Dylan Gambrell, F Luke Kunin, F Kevin Labanc, F Joseph LaBate, F Owen Sillinger, F James van Riemsdyk, D Jack Johnson, G Zachary Sawchenko
Projected Cap Space
Only the Sharks have more cap space for 2025-26 at present than the Blue Jackets. They’ve got $40.4MM to work with despite already having 18 roster players inked for next year, per PuckPedia. Cap space won’t be an obstacle for re-signing anybody with mutual interest in an extension or making competitive offers for some of the top players available on the open market.
Images courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images (Voronkov) and Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images (Provorov). Contract info courtesy of PuckPedia.
Blue Jackets Prospect Nikolai Makarov Remaining Overseas
May 29: While Makarov intended to sign, it doesn’t look like the Jackets were ready to give him a contract yet. He signed a one-year extension with CSKA today to remain in Russia next season, the club announced.
April 15: The Blue Jackets are set to sign defense prospect Nikolai Makarov to a two-year entry-level contract beginning next season, Daria Tuboltseva of Responsible Gambler reports.
Makarov, 22, is a sleeper prospect in Columbus’ system. A fifth-round pick in 2021, the 6’1″, 194-lb lefty has remained in his native Russia since being drafted. Four years on, though, he’s yet to capture a full-time role in the high-tier Kontinental Hockey League. He remains with CSKA Moscow, the system he’s played in since 2019, but spent most of this season in the second-tier VHL with feeder club Zvezda Moscow.
A couple of years ago, it looked like Makarov was making strides in his development. While he spent the majority of the 2022-23 season in Russia’s top junior league, the MHL, he earned a late-season promotion to CSKA’s main roster and ended up suiting up in all 27 of the club’s playoff games as they won the Gagarin Cup. He also played in all five of their postseason games last year, but CSKA opted not to dress him in their first-round loss against Dinamo Minsk here in 2025.
Down with Zvezda, Makarov logged 4-8–12 with 14 PIMs and a plus-one rating in 41 appearances this season. He hits pause on his Russian professional career with 1-3–4 and a +12 rating in 64 career KHL games over the last five years, adding 4-17–21 in 69 VHL games over parts of five seasons.
A physically aggressive defensive defender, it’ll be interesting to see how Makarov leverages his NHL-average frame in the North American pros. He’ll presumably join AHL Cleveland next season for added development, although the Jackets could always reach an agreement to loan him back to CSKA while keeping his NHL contract active. There’s not much of a realistic path for him to see playing time on a Blue Jackets club with playoff aspirations in 2026, but he could be a name to watch for a call-up in the second season of his deal. He’ll be a restricted free agent upon expiry.
Blue Jackets Won't Sign Peddle And Rysavy
- The Blue Jackets have a pair of prospects that they will lose the rights to if not signed by June 1st, wingers Tyler Peddle and Martin Rysavy. It appears they’ll be letting both go as Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that Columbus won’t sign them before the deadline. Peddle was a seventh-round pick in 2023, going 224th overall and had just 29 points in 54 games with QMJHL Saint John this season. Meanwhile, Rysavy was a seventh-rounder two years earlier, going 197th overall. He spent this season in the Czech Extraliga, posting five goals and four assists in 52 games with Liberec.
Blue Jackets Shopping First-Round Picks
The Blue Jackets have made both of their first-round picks in the 2025 draft available for trade, general manager Don Waddell told Mark Scheig of The Hockey Writers.
Columbus enters the draft with the No. 14 and No. 20 overall selections, the latter of which they acquired from the Wild in last November’s David Jiricek trade. It’s the first time since 2022 that the Jackets haven’t held a top-five pick, and the first time since 2020 that they haven’t held a top-10 selection.
Their lower draft position comes as a result of their ninth-place finish in the Eastern Conference, narrowly missing out on the final wild card spot to the Canadiens by two points. Under new head coach Dean Evason, many of the pieces Columbus has assembled with their wealth of top draft picks over the past few years took significant strides in 2024-25 and fueled the club to its first 40-win season since 2018-19. That was the year the Jackets upset the 128-point Lightning in a first-round sweep to win the first of two playoff series in franchise history.
Just two players, Boone Jenner and Zach Werenski, remain from that club. A full rebuild has gone on since, started by former GM Jarmo Kekalainen and guided nearly over the finish line by Waddell. After spending much of 2024-25 in a playoff position despite multiple core pieces missing significant chunks of the season with injuries, a playoff spot will be the expectation for the Jackets next season.
That, plus the fact that they’ve already assembled one of the best prospect pools in the league with their wealth of draft picks so far this decade, makes one – if not both – of this year’s first-round selections expendable, especially since they’re mid-round picks in a weaker draft class. Waddell has plenty of financial flexibility to augment his young core in free agency this summer, boasting $41.3MM in cap space with only six roster spots to fill, but it makes sense he’d consider leveraging his draft capital for a trade pickup amid a thin free agent class outside of the top few names.
If Waddell manages to agree to terms on an extension with pending UFA defenseman Ivan Provorov, the back end won’t be an area of concern for the Jackets entering next year, aside from some depth pickups. An impact top-line forward will be the main goal for the Jackets this summer, ideally to help push the aging Jenner down to a more comfortable middle-six role, as well as taking some pressure off of No. 1 center Sean Monahan to have a repeat performance of his unexpectedly resurgent 2024-25. Nikolaj Ehlers and Mitch Marner are the only two UFA options this summer who are under the age of 30 and are coming off seasons in which they operated at a 60-point pace.
They’ll face fierce bidding competition on both targets on the open market. While they have the cap space to match any offer they receive elsewhere, banking on certain UFA pickups – or even the assumption they’ll reach free agency – is never 100%. Leveraging what Columbus views as a redundant asset for a trade pickup is an understandably attractive workaround.
If there’s a legitimate starting goaltender to be had on the trade market as the offseason progresses, expect Columbus to make those picks available in a trade framework there as well. 23-year-old Jet Greaves likely solidified an opening-night spot in the fall after posting a sterling .938 SV% and 1.91 GAA in third-string duties last year, but they could look for an upgrade on veteran starter Elvis Merzlikins (26-21-5, .892 SV%, 3.18 GAA in 53 GP) to partner with him.