Blue Jackets making strong push for playoff spot

The last time the Columbus Blue Jackets made the playoffs in an 82-game schedule you knew, right in the moment, the showing was surely a last hurrah for that roster. Six years later, the Jackets are making a strong bid to get back to the post-season and even if that push falls short, it’s easy to believe this version of the club is just beginning to rise.

Columbus was a 3-2 overtime winner against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night thanks to a three-on-three power move from Kirill Marchenko to end the affair. The first goal of the game was netted by Jackets defenceman Zach Werenski, meaning the two best stories in Columbus bookended the scoring in this huge win.

Marchenko — after establishing himself as a 20-goal guy during his first two years in the league — is busting loose in Year 3. The game-winner against L.A. was his 20th of the year and the 24-year-old Russian winger — who clocks in at six-foot-three and nearly 200 pounds — is leading all Jackets forwards in scoring with 53 points through 50 games.

Werenski, meanwhile, is leading the entire squad in scoring from the back end with 54 points. The 27-year-old averages more ice time per game (26:47) than every player in the NHL as he continues to distance himself from a trying injury history, including playing just 13 contests in 2022-23. Werenski is a strong candidate to win the Bill Masterton Trophy for his perseverance and dedication to hockey; he’ll surely be a front-runner for the Norris Trophy, and you can bank on him getting some MVP votes, too.

Of course, the run the Jackets are on requires big-time efforts from more than two players. Just before Christmas, Columbus was basically as close to last place in the Eastern Conference as it was to a playoff spot. Now, the Jackets are slugging it out with a handful of other teams in a fight for the final couple playoff spots in the East thanks to an 11-4-1 record since Dec. 23.

Kent Johnson, the fifth-overall pick in 2021, is finally finding his NHL footing with 10 points in his past 11 contests. Adam Fantilli, the third-overall selection in 2023, is starting to look like a super sophomore with seven goals and 13 points in 12 outings since the calendar flipped to 2025. And yet another young forward, 24-year-old winger Dmitri Voronkov, is scoring at a 36-goal pace with his six-foot-five frame.

Throw Marchenko in there and you’ve got four guys under the age of 25 who are starting to look like serious NHLers.

The end result is an offence that’s scoring 3.30 goals per game under new coach Dean Evason, good for seventh in the league. All that cannon-firing must be a fun development for a franchise that, historically, has never been too explosive. Remember, the Jackets have just three 40-goal seasons in their history (40 and 41 by Rick Nash, 41 by Cam Atkinson) and two 80-point showings, both by Artemi Panarin (87 and 82).

Critically, the toothy offence is now being supported by some better crease play. Elvis Merzlikins — who seemed destined for a one-way ticket out of town at times in the past — has posted a .917 save percentage in his past seven outings.

Of course, Panarin was one of those guys who had one foot out the door in 2019, when Columbus upset the Tampa Bay Lightning in Round 1 of the playoffs before falling to the Boston Bruins in six games. Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky was also a pending UFA and, predictably, blew town with his fellow Russian that summer. Matt Duchene — acquired in a gutsy go-for-it play that winter by former GM Jarmo Kekalainen at the trade deadline — also departed as a free agent after just 33 games in Central Ohio.

There will be no such exodus this time for a franchise that hasn’t seen the post-season since the bubble playoffs five years ago in Toronto.

Of course, hardship doesn’t even begin to explain what the Jackets family went through with the late-summer death of Johnny Gaudreau. On the ice, the team also lost captain Boone Jenner before the puck dropped on the regular season to shoulder surgery following an injury in practice. The Jackets are also playing without top centre Sean Monahan right now — and will be for some time — thanks to a wrist injury.

Yet they soldier on.

While there’s no firm timetable for his return, Jenner looks as though he’ll be back practising with his teammates this week.

That’s great news for the Jackets and their fans; which, this year, is basically everybody in hockey.

 Weekend Takeaways

• Few hockey weekends begin with a bang the way this one did when Colorado and Carolina shook up the sports world Friday evening with the swap that landed Mikko Rantanen in Raleigh and sent Martin Necas to Denver. The Avs — likely still reeling from the news — lost 3-1 in Boston on Saturday, then battled back 24 hours later for a crazy 5-4 win over the Rangers in Madison Square Garden. Artturi Lehkonen scored in both games for Colorado — including the late winner against the Rangers — and you have to wonder if his development as a goal-scorer made the Avs even a bit more willing to move his fellow Finn, Rantanen.

Could Lehkonen be the next Zach Hyman? Sound nuts?

Hyman didn’t have a 30-goal season on the books until his age-30 season when he scored 36 during his second year with the Oilers after starting out with the Leafs. The next campaign, he exploded for 54.

It’s hard to predict that kind of leap for anyone, but Lehkonen scored at a 27-goal pace in his first full year with the Avs and a 29-goal clip in Year 2 after coming over in a 2022 trade with Montreal. Now — with 20 goals in 39 contests — the 29-year-old Finn is finding the range at a 42-goal pace.

His bugaboo is staying healthy, as he’s not played more than 64 games in a year since coming to Colorado. But Lehkonen is a hard-nosed net-driver with a good shot who plays on an offence-first squad. Maybe he’s just tapping his potential as an NHL goal-scorer. 

• Taylor Hall was also part of Friday’s shocking three-way swap, heading from Chicago to Carolina. The Canes are the seventh team the 2010 first-overall pick has suited up for and assuming the 33-year-old pending UFA wants to keep playing for a few more years, he’s got a chance to wind up skating for more teams than any other top selection in NHL history. According to the awesome people at Sportsnet Stats, Hall has joined Roman Hamrlik (1992) and Joe Murphy (1986) as first-overall selections who have skated for seven clubs. The only No. 1 selection who played for more was 1979 draft headliner Rob Ramage, a blue-liner who lined up for eight organizations. Hall is almost certain to ink with No. 8 this off-season and could make it to nine between now and the time the 2018 Hart Trophy winner hangs ‘em up.

The Week Ahead

• Andrew Mangiapane — who played over 400 games with the Flames and posted a 35-goal season in 2021-22 — returns to Calgary as a productive member of the high-flying Washington Capitals on Tuesday.

• Paul Maurice is set to coach his 1,900th career game on Wednesday when the Panthers host the Kings. Maurice turns 58 the next day and given how good his team is and how much passion he still has for the job, it feels like a given he’ll get the 242 more contests he needs to overtake Scotty Bowman (2,141) for the most games spent behind an NHL bench.

• Rantanen will make his home debut for the Canes on Thursday when they welcome Hall’s former club, the Chicago Blackhawks. Meanwhile, Martin Necas will play his first game in Denver as a member of the Avs on Friday versus the St. Louis Blues.

• There’s no NHL All-Star Game happening this winter, but the AHL will have its all-star weekend on Saturday and Sunday in Palm Desert, Calif.

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Winnipeg Jets (34-14-3): The Jets filled the net on the weekend, popping 10 total goals against Utah and Calgary. With three more power-play markers at Canada Life Centre, Winnipeg is cashing an incredible (and league-best) 36.6 per cent of its man advantages on home ice.

2. Edmonton Oilers (31-15-3): Connor McDavid has served his three-game sentence and will draw back into the lineup when the Oilers host the Kraken on Monday night. McDavid needs eight more assists to hit 700 in his career and is probably in a mood to get them soon.

3. Toronto Maple Leafs (30-18-2): The Leafs host the Wild on Wednesday. After that, Toronto will play just two home games before March 13 as the Buds take to the road for 11 of 13 contests.

4. Calgary Flames (24-17-7): With two goals in Saturday’s big road win in Minnesota, Andrei Kuzmenko doubled his season output to four tallies. It’s incredible to think this player scored 39 times as a first-year NHLer just two seasons ago and found the net at a 40-goal pace in 29 contests with Calgary last year after coming over from Vancouver. Somebody is going to give him a one-year rip as a UFA this summer and hope he fills the net for them.

5. Ottawa Senators (26-20-4): Ottawa — which had been struggling to score — still managed its second straight four-point weekend thanks to 28 saves by Anton Forsberg in Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Toronto and 34 stops from Leevi Merilainen during Sunday’s 3-1 win against Utah.

6. Montreal Canadiens (24-20-5): If the Canadiens want to keep pace in the Eastern Conference playoff chase, they need to stop spotting their opponents’ leads. The Habs have fallen behind in six of their past seven outings, including Saturday’s 4-3 OTL to the Devils.

7. Vancouver Canucks (21-17-10): Quinn Hughes’ two goals in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Washington gives him 14 on the year, which means the only defencemen with more are Werenski (16) and Cale Makar (18). At 1.23 points per game, Hughes is the most productive D-man in the league ahead of Makar (1.10) and Werenski (1.08).

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