Blue Jackets To Activate Mason Marchment, Isac Lundestrom
The Columbus Blue Jackets will return a pair of forwards tomorrow. Relayed from reporter Dave Maetzold, head coach Rick Bowness indicated that forwards Mason Marchment and Isac Lundeström will be activated from the injured reserve before tomorrow’s game against the Dallas Stars.
Activating both forwards will require an additional roster move by the Blue Jackets. It’ll likely come in the form of placing another player on injured reserve, rather than reassigning one to the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters. Columbus has a few players dealing with ailments that haven’t been placed on the team’s injured reserve, including Dante Fabbro, Elvis Merzļikins, and Denton Mateychuk.
Marchment, acquired from the Seattle Kraken in December, will look to continue his hot streak with Columbus. The 30-year-old winger scored five goals and seven points in his first seven games with the Blue Jackets before succumbing to an upper-body injury at the beginning of the month. Tomorrow’s game against the Stars will be the third time he’s faced off against his former club after going scoreless in the two previous matchups.
Lundeström, 26, is in his first year with Columbus after signing a two-year contract with the club last summer. The former first-round pick has primarily served as a bottom-six center for the Blue Jackets this season, scoring one goal and five points in 35 games. He has missed the last month with a lower-body injury.
Meanwhile, outside of Miles Wood, it’ll be the first time that Bowness has had a relatively healthy forward core to work with since becoming the team’s head coach on January 12th. The team has improved since he took over, managing a 3-1-0 record. Still, Columbus has plenty of work to do to get back into the playoff conversation, currently sitting seven points back of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Blue Jackets Place Isac Lundestrom On IR, Recall Dysin Mayo
The Columbus Blue Jackets have made a minor roster adjustment ahead of tomorrow’s game against the New Jersey Devils. The Blue Jackets announced that they’ve placed forward Isac Lundeström on the injured reserve, and recalled defenseman Dysin Mayo on an emergency basis in a corresponding roster move.
In the announcement, the team added that Lundeström sustained his injury during a team practice and is expected to miss the next few weeks, which was already reported yesterday. The 26-year-old center is in his first year with the Blue Jackets and has missed the team’s last two games due to the lower-body injury.
Even with relatively low expectations coming into the year, Lundeström has had mixed results with his new club. He has scored one goal and five points in 35 games, pacing for four fewer points than he had last year with the Anaheim Ducks.
Still, outside of his tepid offensive production, Lundeström is one of the best faceoff takers on the team with a 53.7% success rate, and is maintaining a respectable 90.5% on-ice save percentage at even strength, offering solid defensive value.
Even with Lundeström on IR, and the status of Sean Monahan up in the air after being a late scratch yesterday, the Blue Jackets have 12 healthy forwards on the active roster, which wouldn’t have triggered the necessity of an emergency recall.
However, the team only has six defensemen on the roster, with Zach Werenski and Erik Gudbranson on the IR, meaning Mayo’s recall is related to a defenseman being unable to go tomorrow. That blue liner is likely veteran Brendan Smith, who sustained an injury toward the end of Columbus’s game yesterday.
It’s not the first time Mayo has been recalled this year, though it is the first time on an emergency basis. Throughout his two previous recalls, Mayo appeared in one game for Columbus, skating in 7:33 of action and earning a -1 rating. He’s had a respectable year with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters, scoring two goals and seven points in 19 games with a -2 rating.
Snapshots: Toninato, Lundestrom, Barzal, Eichel
The Blackhawks announced that they’ve assigned center Dominic Toninato back to AHL Rockford. Recalled three weeks ago, the 31-year-old got into five games with Chicago while on recall, picking up an assist and ten hits in 9:12 per game of playing time. Toninato has been much more productive with the IceHogs, notching five goals and 12 assists in 24 games with them. With his assignment, the Blackhawks now have an open roster spot. Don’t expect that spot to go to Connor Bedard, however, as while he returned to the ice today per Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, it was a light skate and there remains no firm timetable for his return.
Elsewhere around the NHL:
- Blue Jackets center Isac Lundestrom is expected to miss a week or two with a lower-body injury sustained in practice over the weekend, reports Aaron Portzline of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 26-year-old is in his first season with Columbus and has been rather quiet offensively, scoring just once while adding four assists in 35 games although he does take a regular turn on the penalty kill.
- Islanders center Mathew Barzal is a little lighter in the wallet today. The league announced that he has received a $5K fine for his slash on Columbus winger Mason Marchment in the second period of Sunday’s game. Barzal received a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct on the play. The fine, which is the maximum allowable under the CBA, goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
- Golden Knights center Jack Eichel took part in today’s morning skate in a non-contact jersey, relays Fox 5 Vegas’ Vince Sapienza (Twitter link). While he has been ruled out for tonight’s game versus Minnesota, he could return Wednesday against Nashville. Eichel has missed the last two weeks due to both an illness and a lower-body injury. Despite missing that much time, he remains the team leader in scoring with 12 goals and 29 assists in 41 games.
Blue Jackets To Activate Mathieu Olivier
As he signaled would be the case yesterday, Blue Jackets head coach Dean Evason told reporters that winger Mathieu Olivier will come off injured reserve and be available for tonight’s tilt against the Islanders (via Jeff Svoboda of NHL.com).
Evason also confirmed star defenseman Zach Werenski will miss a second straight game with the right foot/ankle injury he sustained on Dec. 20 against the Ducks, but reaffirmed he isn’t expected to miss significant time and is still listed as day-to-day. Since he’s already missed more than a week, he can go on injured reserve retroactively to create the roster spot for Olivier’s activation.
Also unavailable tonight for the Jackets is center Isac Lundeström, Evason said. Lundeström sustained a lower-body injury in Columbus’ first post-holiday practice session Saturday and has not yet finished being evaluated.
The 6’2″, 210-lb Olivier returns after missing more than a month with an upper-body injury. The 28-year-old grinder forced his way into the Jackets’ top nine last year with a career-high 18 goals, 32 points, and 306 hits, earning himself a six-year, $18MM extension in the process.
So far, the Mississippi native has at least kept up the pace from last season’s emergence. His goal-scoring is down, but his total production – a 3-6–9 scoring line in 23 games – mirrors his 0.39 points per game output from 2024-25. He’s doing that while averaging 14 minutes per game, averaging over three hits a night for the third straight year, and seeing some occasional shorthanded deployment.
Per yesterday’s practice, Olivier is ticketed to return as the Jackets’ third-line right wing alongside Boone Jenner and Charlie Coyle, a spot on the depth chart he’s held all season long.
Lundeström’s performance in Columbus since signing a two-year, $2.6MM deal in free agency has been par for the course. A first-round pick by the Ducks in 2018, he profiled as a high-end, bottom-six two-way center but never found his stride offensively. That’s continued in 2025-26, with the Swede posting only one goal and five points through 35 appearances.
He’s been fine in a shutdown role, posting a -5 rating and 43.3% shot attempt share while starting 32.8% of his even-strength shifts in the offensive zone. Either Zach Aston-Reese or Brendan Gaunce will relieve him as Columbus’ fourth-line center in the interim.
Metropolitan Notes: Blue Jackets, Horvat, Miller, Lizotte
Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski is listed as doubtful for tomorrow’s game against the Islanders due to a lower-body injury, per team reporter Jeff Svoboda (Twitter link). The veteran missed the final game before the break due to the injury as well. Werenski has been nothing short of dominant for Columbus this season, leading the team in scoring with 14 goals and 26 assists in 35 games while his ATOI of 26:48 is the second-highest in the NHL.
Meanwhile, it appears that the Blue Jackets could get Mathieu Olivier back on Sunday. Svoboda mentions (Twitter link) that the winger feels ready to return and is merely waiting to get clearance from team doctors. He has missed the last month due to an upper-body injury. However, the news up front isn’t all good as Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that center Isac Lundestrom suffered what appeared to be a left leg injury during practice today. He left and did not return; no update was available after practice.
More from the Metropolitan:
- As expected, Bo Horvat will return to the lineup tonight for the Islanders, the team announced. He missed the last five games with a lower-body injury and while the initial thought was that he might miss three weeks, he’s able to beat that timeline by a few days. The 30-year-old has 19 goals and 12 assists in 32 games this season, leading the team in goals and points. Horvat remained on the active roster while out of the lineup so no corresponding moves need to be made.
- Hurricanes defenseman K’Andre Miller is listed as a game-time decision tonight against Detroit, relays team reporter Walt Ruff (Twitter link). He blocked a shot late in Tuesday’s loss to Florida and is being evaluated by team medical staff today. Miller is in his first season with Carolina and has played a big role when healthy, picking up 13 points in 29 games while averaging a career-high 22:31 per night of ice time.
- Penguins center Blake Lizotte returned to a full practice with contact today, notes Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Twitter link). He has missed the last nine games with an undisclosed injury and is a possibility to return on Sunday which would necessitate another roster move first. The 28-year-old is in a contract year but was rather quiet offensively before being injured, tallying just three goals and two assists in 27 games although he was being used in a very heavy defense-first role. If Pittsburgh falls out of the playoff race, he’s a candidate to be moved before the March 6th trade deadline.
Blue Jackets Notes: Fantilli, Provorov, Forward Depth
There’s no question that the Columbus Blue Jackets have one of the cleanest cap tables in the league, especially for how competitive they’re expected to be in the 2025-26 season. Still, as their younger players continue to age, the Blue Jackets are getting closer to potentially having to make difficult decisions, and their extension negotiations with Adam Fantilli will have a major impact on their salary hierarchy moving forward.
Despite having a somewhat disappointing rookie season, albeit limited by injuries, the third overall pick of the 2024 NHL Draft responded well last season, scoring 31 goals and 54 points in 82 games while averaging 17:29 of ice time per game. Fantilli still needs to improve in the faceoff dot and on the defensive side of the puck, but being a 30-goal scorer at 20 years old is nothing to scoff at.
In a recent interview with James Murphy of RG Media, Blue Jackets’ General Manager Don Waddell spoke about the upcoming negotiations with Fantilli, saying, We’re going to talk here in the next couple of weeks. Pat Brisson is his agent, and we’re going to do some face-to-face meetings. When these kinds of players are up and these kinds of deals need to be made, I think you need to be in front of each other. I think you make a lot more progress than just over the phone. So that’s always been my theory, and Pat’s the same way. I’ve done a lot of deals over the years with Pat, so we’ll be fine and sit down face-to-face and get this done. As we get closer to training camp, I think we’ll be much further ahead, and we have some dates already planned that we’ll meet, so let’s go from there.”
There technically shouldn’t be any rush on Columbus’s end, given that Fantilli is a few years away from even becoming arbitration-eligible. Still, for the sake of cost certainty and having one of their core pieces locked up long-term, the Blue Jackets are eyeing a long-term extension with Fantilli in the coming weeks.
Waddell also spoke about a separate extension this offseason. On the eve of free agency this summer, Columbus re-signed defenseman Ivan Provorov to a seven-year, $59.5MM contract, which represented only a $1.75MM yearly increase on his previous deal. Despite reports at the time indicating that Provorov might seek a larger deal on the open market, Waddell explained in the interview that there was no real concern he’d leave the organization.
Murphy quoted Waddell, saying, “Well, the good thing is I was in dialogue regularly with Mark Andler, his agent, and there’s a lot of outside noise, but Mark kept telling me, and Provorov too, that his first choice was to stay here in Columbus.” Waddell explained that although Provorov’s cap hit may seem high, he believes it will look more favorable as the salary cap increases. Additionally, Provorov’s preparation for each season is expected to enhance his longevity throughout the duration of the contract.
Lastly, Waddell touched on his excitement over the depth the Blue Jackets brought in this summer, particularly on offense. The team specifically targeted Charlie Coyle as a right-handed center and believes his leadership skills will prove a boon to the younger players on the roster.
Meanwhile, the team’s General Manager also remarked about the skill level of Miles Wood on the offensive side of the puck and Isac Lundeström‘s skill on the defensive side of the puck. All three additions are expected to maintain important roles for the Blue Jackets this season and help the team return to the postseason for the first time since the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Blue Jackets Sign Isac Lundeström To Two-Year Deal
The Blue Jackets have signed center Isac Lundeström to a two-year deal worth $1.3MM per season, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports.
Taking advantage of the Anaheim Ducks failing to give Lundeström a qualifying offer, the Blue Jackets felt compelled to offer the former first-round pick another opportunity. Lundeström is a natural center and could represent a shrewd option for Columbus to play on their fourth line.
All of a sudden, the up-and-coming Blue Jackets have put together impressive center depth, especially after adding Charlie Coyle a few days ago. Lundeström is not typically recognized for his offensive skills, yet he approached the 30-point mark a few years ago. This output appears even more impressive considering the Ducks have struggled with scoring as a team for several years.
Most of his value in Columbus will come on the defensive side of the puck. Since becoming a full-timer for the Ducks beginning in the 2020-21 NHL season, Lundeström has regularly maintained a higher than 90.0% on-ice save percentage at even strength. The only issue that may arise is his lethargic faceoff percentage of 45.9%.
That success rate in the dot could be palatable from a center with more offensive upside. However, Lundeström started 62.4% of his shifts in Anaheim in the defensive zone, making his faceoff rate look far worse. Although he may take on a similar fourth-line role with the Blue Jackets, they will want him to address those issues in the faceoff circle, or they won’t feel comfortable utilizing him in high-pressure situations.
PHR’s Brennan McClain contributed significantly to this article.
Team Sweden Announces 2025 World Championship Roster
Team Sweden has announced their roster for the upcoming 2025 IIHF World Championships. The ‘Tre Konor’ will look to finish higher than third place in the international tournament for the first time since 2018.
The team will look similar to the one Sweden brought to the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. Filip Forsberg, Lucas Raymond, and Mika Zibanejad will reprise their roles as Sweden’s top forwards, while Rasmus Andersson and Jonas Brodin will lead the defensive core.
Unfortunately, the team will be without forward William Eklund for the tournament due to offseason wrist surgery. Sweden is expected to announce Eklund’s replacement in the coming days. The rest of Team Sweden’s roster is as follows:
F Mikael Backlund (Flames)
F Anton Bengtsson (Rögle BK)
F Leo Carlsson (Ducks)
F Christoffer Ehn (Linköping HC)
F Filip Forsberg (Predators)
F Max Friberg (Frölunda HC)
F Jesper Frödén (ZSC Lions)
F Marcus Johansson (Wild)
F Elias Lindholm (Bruins)
F Isac Lundeström (Ducks)
F Lucas Raymond (Red Wings)
F Alexander Wennberg (Sharks)
F Mika Zibanejad (Rangers)
D Rasmus Andersson (Flames)
D Jonas Brodin (Wild)
D Gabriel Carlsson (EV Zug)
D Simon Edvinsson (Red Wings)
D Adam Larsson (Kraken)
D Marcus Pettersson (Canucks)
G Samuel Ersson (Flyers)
G Jacob Markström (Devils)
G Arvid Söderblom (Blackhawks)
Ducks Place Frank Vatrano On Injured Reserve
12:07 p.m.: Vatrano isn’t hurt; rather, he’s been placed on IR while on paternity leave, the Ducks said. However, center Isac Lundeström is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury and won’t play tonight, so Harkins will likely draw into the lineup. Vatrano
11:52 a.m.: Ducks forward Frank Vatrano is no longer on the active roster, per the NHL’s media site. PuckPedia indicates he’s been placed on injured reserve, meaning he likely sustained an undisclosed ailment in Anaheim’s overtime win over Utah on Wednesday. They’ve used his open roster spot to summon winger Jansen Harkins from AHL San Diego in a corresponding move, per the league’s transactions log.
It’s been a tough start to the season for Vatrano, who’s skated in a second-line role alongside Ryan Strome and Troy Terry but has nonetheless had his minutes reduced from last year. After scoring a career-high 37 goals in 2023-24 while logging 18:21 per game, the 30-year-old has only one assist through three games this season and is averaging 15:37 per night.
He’s struggled to generate chances offensively, only recording five shots on goal. It’s a tiny sample size, but that only projects out to 137 shots over 82 games after recording 231 and 272 shots over the last two years, respectively. Nonetheless, the Ducks are 2-1-0 with a +1 goal differential through their first three showings, even without many game-breaking offensive performances. Their start can be credited to strong goaltending in the early stages from Lukáš Dostál (two starts) and preseason waiver claim James Reimer (one start), who’ve combined for a .924 SV% and 2.32 GAA. Usual starter John Gibson remains on IR after undergoing appendectomy surgery almost a month ago.
Vatrano has been on one of the most value-laden deals in the league over the past few seasons. After signing a three-year, $10.95MM deal to join the Ducks as a free agent in 2022, he’s churned out 59 goals and 102 points in 166 games in Orange County. That’s good enough for 0.61 points per game, far above his 0.48 career average. The pending UFA could be one of the top names available at the trade deadline if Anaheim remains far away from playoff contention and gets his scoring back under him after he returns from what all sides hope is a brief absence.
Harkins, 28, signed a two-year, $1.58MM deal with the Ducks in free agency this offseason after an underwhelming 2023-24 campaign that saw him post just four assists in 45 games with the Penguins. It wasn’t surprising when he cleared waivers earlier this month. He had a goal and an assist in his first two games for San Diego this season after posting 12 points in 14 games during AHL assignments with the Penguins last year. The 2015 second-round Jets pick has 31 points in 199 career NHL games over the previous five years.
With 13 healthy forwards on the roster after the moves, there’s no guarantee Harkins will make his Ducks debut tonight against the Avalanche. He’ll likely sit in the press box and serve as last-minute injury insurance.
Ducks Sign Isac Lundestrom To One-Year Extension
The Anaheim Ducks have signed winger Isac Lundestrom to a one-year, $1.5MM extension, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link).
Anaheim drafted Lundestrom 23rd-overall in the 2018 NHL Draft, taking him as part of what’s become a first-round to remember. He briefly returned to the SHL following his draft, before stepping into 15 games with the Ducks and 12 in the AHL in the year’s second half. That kicked off Lundestrom’s career in North American pros, though he wouldn’t earn an everyday role until the 2020-21 season when he tallied just nine points in 41 games. But with the everyday role came a bout of confidence, and Lundestrom would go on to score 16 goals and 29 points in 80 games in 2021-22.
But Lundestrom couldn’t maintain the growing scoring, falling back to just four goals and 14 points in 61 games last season. To make matters worse, he suffered a torn Achilles that required surgery last August, holding him out until January of this year. Lundestrom tallied five goals and 11 points in 46 games during the year’s second half, though his struggles were evident. He’ll now get a chance to work out of those struggles with a fully healthy season in 2024-25, though he’ll have to fight for his role among a crowded Anaheim bottom-six. He’ll be competing for a role with rookies Cutter Gauthier and Sam Colangelo, stout depth pieces like Ross Colton, and any potential free agents the Ducks choose to add. That could be a tall order – and one that Anaheim will be ready to judge when Lundestrom is eligible for a new deal next summer.