Columbus Blue Jackets 2023-24 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings

A controversial coaching change and resignation, one high draft pick and some big deals on defense later, the Blue Jackets are looking to return to the playoffs.

That was the goal last season after signing the leading free agent on the market in Johnny Gaudreau, but injuries derailed that plan pretty quickly. But a season with an awful finish landed Columbus the third pick in the draft used to select high-end center Adam Fantilli.

That only marked the beginning of the offseason in Columbus. Hiring Mike Babcock followed, as did addressing the blue line with trades for Damon Severson and Ivan Provorov. That coaching decision led to a chaotic week before training camps even opened, and ended with Pascal Vincent taking over as bench boss.

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Now the question is whether the Blue Jackets did enough to make noise in the Eastern Conference, or if they got in their own way with decisions that could ultimately set the team back.

The projection

For those still haunted by last season, it’s best to keep expectations reasonably low. It’s better to be surprised than disappointed. We’re not trying to be mean — we want to believe in the Blue Jackets, we do. It’s just difficult to picture a successful season unless a lot of unexpectedly good things happen at once.

There’s a possibility Vincent can fix a lot of the damage — we’ll get to that — and there are a lot of kids who could see rapid improvement. That leaves some room for optimism after such an unexpectedly poor 2022-23 season. It’s just not enough optimism to even think about the playoffs. It’s not impossible, especially with the model’s projection not accounting for a new coach, it’s just seriously unlikely.

That’s not the worst thing for the Blue Jackets either. One more year of pain is okay in the long run if it helps lead to serious future progress. Another year in the tank could mean one more shiny toy to add to a promising pile of young talent. With how competitive the East is, that would line up with a more realistic window to win too. And give the Blue Jackets a better future chance to succeed when they get there.

For now, get comfortable with the basement, Blue Jackets fans.

Percentiles with the bar graphs are based on each player’s Offensive, Defensive and Net Rating relative to their time-on-ice slot, i.e. the first forward is compared to other first forwards only.

The strengths

Squint and you can see a strong core starting to build at several levels. It’s not there yet, but the pieces of the puzzle are starting to connect. That starts at the top with the team’s two biggest acquisitions toward solving the team’s star-power problem: Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine.

First seasons always have an acclimation period and that was clearly the case for Gaudreau. Everyone expected a step-back on a weaker team after an MVP-calibre season — it’s now a question of what he does next. He should get back above 80 points next season and he was still pretty electric with the puck on his stick in all three zones. But defensive improvements will be a huge priority. After making serious strides under Darryl Sutter in his final year with Calgary, Gaudreau regressed last season. On a bad team his relative impact on expected goals against dropped to 0.14, his worst mark since 2017-18.

Sure, it may be hard to post strong defensive results given the circumstances of his usage: tougher minutes without much support, especially on the backend. Then again, Laine had his best defensive season ever within a similar context. If there’s one reason to be extra excited about Columbus’ future core it’s that Laine took a very real step toward becoming an actual franchise building block. Not just a player who scores like one.

Laine made his debut on our annual Player Tiers list for that reason, somehow earning 52 percent of the goals at five-on-five last year. The 47 percent expected goals rate wasn’t as great, but it was a massive step up from the rest of the team at both ends of the ice. It’s not just his play without the puck, Laine has also become much more than just a shooter with the puck. He passes better, he creates chances off the forecheck, he carries the puck up ice — he’s getting there. More care while exiting the zone would help, but Laine’s progress is real.

As a one-two punch, Gaudreau and Laine are just a little below average and they might be better slotted as a team’s second and third best forwards. For now, they’re close enough with the potential to break through as the team around them improves. Severson coming in sure helps with that on the backend, a defender who breaks the puck out well and should be perfectly slotted as the team’s No. 3 defenseman.

The health of Zach Werenski is also crucial to that goal. Though he doesn’t grade out as an above-average No. 1 defenseman, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him get there this season. He was amazing in 13 games last season before the injury with eight points while earning 53 percent of the expected goals — it just wasn’t enough to go by to drastically improve his rating. He’s the straw that stirs the drink on the backend, a do-it-all type that was sorely missing all season.

That’s two players in their prime (Laine, Werenski) and two players leaving it (Gaudreau, Severson) for Columbus, but what makes the Blue Jackets build so exciting is obviously what comes next.

Fantilli headlines that and it’s not impossible to picture him being Columbus’ top-line center by season’s end. Fantilli’s college numbers were on par with Jack Eichel’s and he looks like he’ll finally be the answer to the team’s decades-long search for a true franchise center. When we talk about Gaudreau and Laine being ideal second and third best forwards, it’s not difficult to imagine who slides in as the top dog. It’s just a question of how soon Fantilli gets there.

Beyond the 2023 third pick, there’s also Kent Johnson, the 2021 fifth pick who showed offensive promise in his rookie year. And David Jiricek, the 2022 sixth pick who may or may not make the team, but looked excellent as a teenager in the AHL. Even Adam Boqvist, who was picked eighth in 2018 and was acquired as part of the Seth Jones package, still has potential at 23 — if he ever learns how to defend.

The future is very bright in Columbus and it’s not hard to see something good being built here.

The weaknesses

The present is far less rosy.

Between all their name-brand players it’s easy to get warped into the idea that the Blue Jackets are better than last year’s record and better than they look here. We do expect a jump from last year’s 59 points for that reason, but any improvement more seismic than expected here will depend on how this team fares defensively.

The Blue Jackets have a lot of offensive weapons for a bottom-feeder (especially if Cole Sillinger finds his way) which is probably why some might view them closer to where they rank by Offensive Rating: 22nd. But there’s no team that’s expected to perform worse defensively, narrowly edging out the Ducks.

Last year was bad for Anaheim, but the Blue Jackets weren’t far behind and they had a weaker track record before that. At five-on-five, they’re the only team to rank in the bottom three for both expected and actual goals in each of the last two seasons. It’s possible it can be fixed by a change behind the bench, but it’s also possible Columbus simply doesn’t have the personnel for it. Not to be an above-average defensive team without sacrificing offense anyway.

Up front, the Blue Jackets don’t have a single player expected to perform above average defensively, and not many with much of a strong defensive history. There’s an argument for Boone Jenner, ill-fit as he may be for his current role as the top-line center. He has some history of decent results, but other than that it’s pretty grim. Jack Roslovic earning top six minutes is part of the problem — no Blue Jackets player bled more chances against last season.

It also doesn’t help that Sean Kuraly’s reputation precedes him and he somehow plays 15 minutes per night despite lousy results. Columbus earned just 41 percent of the expected goals and 29 percent (!) of the actual goals with Kuraly on the ice last season. And no, heavy defensive zone usage isn’t a viable excuse for a forward who struggles immensely with retrieving pucks and getting them out.

That doesn’t make things easy for a backend that also struggles in that regard. A lot will depend on how Provorov and Severson can stabilize things in the top four, though Provorov is far from a safe top pair bet at this stage of his career.

That pushes players down to a more appropriate role, though that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily fit there either. Someone still has to play in the top four and neither Jake Bean nor Boqvist seem like someone to be comfortable with given their shortcomings. Erik Gudbranson and Andrew Peeke still exist and while they were asked to do far too much last season, it’s hard to imagine either can fit a depth role appropriately. Both are abysmal when it comes to moving the puck in any zone, contributing heavily to Columbus’ problems at both ends of the ice last season.

Gudbranson’s poor reputation is well known by now, but it might be Peeke that’s a bigger problem. Over the last three years, he’s been outscored 179-to-100 at five-on-five, the league’s absolute worst mark. His expected plus-minus of minus-34.5 ranks third last. If the Blue Jackets want to improve, having both players in the lineup at the same time is a no-go. Having neither would be preferable.

More than anything though, Columbus has a major problem between the pipes. Elvis Merzlikins was not himself last season, going from slightly below-average netminder to unusably weak. In 30 games, Merzlikins managed to allow 26.7 goals above expected, the sixth lowest per-game total since 2007-08. It wasn’t as bad as Steve Mason in 2011-12, but it was close.

Factors outside of hockey obviously contributed to that and the human element of losing a loved one can’t be ignored. Natural regression is likely too, as it was for Mason in 2011-12, and it’s why Merzlikins is expected to bounce all the way back toward minus-three goals saved above expected. That’s right in between his 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons.

The issue is… that’s not very good either, not for projection purposes anyway where the expected range for goalies is naturally tighter due to uncertainty. It puts Merzlikins on track to be the league’s least reliable starter. Columbus doesn’t have much of a safety net either behind him in Daniil Tarasov who allowed 7.1 goals above expected in 17 games last season.

Defensive improvements across the board could have a ripple effect across the lineup, including in net. That’s the Blue Jackets’ best avenue toward improvement.

But between an inexperienced coach who was on staff during the last two seasons, a weak personnel group with little history of strong defensive results, and goaltending that’s unlikely to meet expectations — it’s hard to picture how much the team’s off-puck play can improve.

Columbus has some intriguing players who can score and some young players who can grow. But what those players are expected to do without the puck on their stick is difficult to trust until proven otherwise.

The wildcard

Can Pascal Vincent improve Columbus’ defensive standing?

Part of the reason Columbus hired Babcock in the first place, foolish and disastrous as it may have been, was to fix its defensive play. Last season, the Blue Jackets finished near the bottom in every major defensive category. We could list them all, but we’ve got a word count to worry about. If last season didn’t feature a generationally bad defensive squad in Anaheim, Columbus would’ve been the worst in the league, and it might not have been close.

How bad was it? Laine, with a 1.1 rating, was their most effective defensive player. Did he have a sneaky good season featuring some legit, across-the-board strides? Absolutely. Should he ever lead a team in Defensive Rating? Absolutely not. Very bad sign.

The Blue Jackets should be better this season by default. Adding Provorov and Severson will help, as would a healthy season from Werenski. Columbus was awful at exiting the zone last year and those three should help fix that. But it’ll take serious schematic changes on top of that to make a worthwhile dent toward the playoffs.

Based on data tracked by Corey Sznajder there are two other major areas needed for improvement. For starters, Vincent could make a huge difference simply by improving his players’ work on defending zone entries — only St. Louis was less efficient there last season. In zone, the Jackets were one of the league’s worst teams at defending the forecheck, leading to a vicious cycle of chances against.

Now, could any coach flip this particular switch, in a meaningful way, overnight? Probably not. If Babcock’s history with the Maple Leafs is any indication, he probably wasn’t going to. Vincent being an assistant under Brad Larsen since 2021 doesn’t feel promising, but he was a successful AHL coach before that and comes in with fresh eyes as a first-time coach.

The best case

The Blue Jackets stir things up and find themselves in the race for an Eastern Conference playoff spot. Gaudreau pops off, Laine brings a more dimensional offensive approach, the young centers thrive in meaningful roles, and Merzlikins finds his footing again.

The worst case

The coaching fiasco creates so much chaos before the year even starts that it burns Columbus and creates a toxic locker room that stalls player development. Key players like Werenski can’t stay healthy, and the goaltending remains unstable and unreliable. Another year of the Gaudreau contract is wasted, and the Blue Jackets don’t end up with a top draft pick to make up for it.

The bottom line

Columbus’ placement and projection, obviously, doesn’t account for whatever comes of the Babcock mess. On one hand, a coaching change that takes place a few days ahead of training camp seems … bad. On the other hand, players won’t have to deal with 82 games’ worth of his particular brand of behavior.

The most likely outcome here, though, hasn’t changed. They’ll be better than last year — if only because their collective health and goaltending is unlikely to be as terrible again — but still finish solidly outside the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference.