2020 Columbus Blue Jackets Offseason Outlook

 For a fourth consecutive year the Columbus Blue Jackets have made it into the postseason. Columbus found themselves in a qualifying round against the Toronto Maple Leafs to earn a spot into the 2020 cup race. The series was a hard fought battle going back and forth with Columbus winning games 1, 3, and 5, While Toronto won Games 2, and 4. Every game was high intensity action with two consecutive games going into overtime ending with the exact same score but a win for opposite teams. Not to mention both those games involved a 2 or more goal come back in the dying minutes of the third to force an overtime period. Resulting in, whichever team had tied the game, would also end up as the victor. In the end it only took three wins to advance and Columbus had gotten there first to eliminate the Toronto Maple Leafs. Seemingly enough like déjà vu would have it Round One of The playoffs brought Columbus back to a familiar opponent in the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now, a slightly different Blue Jackets team from the year before. The series didn’t end the same way it did the year prior. Every game Columbus had lost was only by a single goal. In the end Tampa took round one 4-1 over the Columbus Blue Jackets. For the fifth time out of six playoff appearances the Blue Jackets were eliminated in the first round. 

With The Playoffs now over for the Jackets let's recap the season and talk about what to look forward to next season. The end of the 2018-2019 season saw a few big names leaving the team also leaving the question whether this would still be a playoff contending team. Even with Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, and Sergei Bobrovsky heading to different teams for the 2019-2020 season Columbus now had an opportunity for some fresh faces to shine. 

Pierre-Luc Dubois had his second best outing of his 3 years in the NHL putting up 18-31-49 in 70 games keeping himself as a consistent leader on the team. Zach Werenski was another leader for the Jackets this year and second on the team with 20 goals. Werenski, finishing with 20-21-41, has a wicked shot with a high hockey IQ to create opportunities for the team to succeed along with amazing defensive vision to read plays and start the break out quickly from his own end. Nick Foligno might not put up as many points for the jackets as he used to but he is nonetheless a huge part of the core of this team. Fighting in dirty areas to win little battles that turn into opportunities and the leadership he brings to the table is clearly a part of why Columbus remains a threat. Seth Jones, Cam Atkinson, Gustav Nyquist, and Oliver Bjorkstrand were also atop the leaders of the team. 

Despite the loss of Sergei Bobrovsky, the goaltending tandem of Joonas Korpisalo, and Elvis Merzlikins was Immensely successful. On the other hand Columbus will need to work on adding some more depth and offensive fire power if they plan on advancing further in the playoffs in the seasons to come. Game five against Tampa Bay shed light on the fact that even as Columbus remains a threat in the NHL they lack depth and high end finishers, which was shown to be  a huge factor in why they lost a 4-2 lead and eventually fell to the Lightning in overtime. Do not worry Columbus fans because this off-season will have quite a few big names up in the free agency pool. Taylor Hall or Evgenii Dadonov could bring some more scoring and depth to Columbus. At the same time there isn't much room to play with only 20 players signed and 7.6 million in cap space on top of 7.1 million in cap charges for the injured Brandon Dubinsky and the final year of Scott Hartnell's contract buyout. Not to mention it will be tough with a flat cap for the next few years. Trading one of their two No.1 goaltenders could open up some cap space to bring in some offensive firepower they need this off season. Defensively Columbus is very well off and it's unlikely they need to make any changes there. Here's a look into the upcoming Columbus off-season free agency.

 

Restricted Free Agents

 

Pierre-Luc Dubois - 894,167 AAV

Josh Anderson - 1,850,000 AAV

Vladislav Gavrikov - 925,000 AAV

Matiss Kivlenieks - 925,000 AAV

Kevin Stenlund - 864,167 AAV

Gabriel Carlsson - 894,166 AAV

Ryan Collins - 880,833 AAV

Jakob Lilja - 792,500 AAV

Maxime Fortier - 759,166 AAV

Michael Prapavessis - 770,000 AAV

Ryan MacInnis - 874,125 AAV

Paul Bittner - 747,500 AAV

Marko Dano - 800,000 AAV

Kole Sherwood - 693,333 AAV

Calvin Thurkauf - 715,000 AAV

Justin Scott - 700,000 AAV

 

Unrestricted Free Agents

 

Doyle Somerby - 715,000AAV

Dillon Simpson - 675,000AAV

 

Pierre-Luc Dubois will definitely receive the most out of an upcoming contract leaving what's left for Gavrikov and Anderson who will all receive 1 way contracts this year. It's going to be an exciting off-season seeing as there won't be much time between the playoffs ending and the start of the 2020-2021 season. Columbus has the 21st pick in the 2020-2021 draft and could look to trade up to a better spot with plenty of desirable trade assets. Columbus also has an abundance of upcoming young talent in the likes of Liam Foudy, Alexandre Texier, Trey Fix-Wolansky, Tyler Angle, Jake Christiansen, Marcus Karlberg, Peter Thome, and Matiss Kivlenieks. With that being said Columbus has their work cut out for themselves but they aren't far from a finished product. The next few months will be important as the Blue Jackets look to continue to become Stanley Cup Champions.

Written By: Michael Benz