The Blue Jackets are a playoff contender.
With the calendar in 2025 and the season at the halfway point, the preceding sentence was not expected by even the most optimistic of pundits. As the club prepares for its game Tuesday night in Pittsburgh — Columbus' 41st of the season and the official midway point — the Blue Jackets sit just one point back of the second wild card spot in a crowded Eastern Conference race.
That final spot, coincidentally, is currently owned by the Penguins.
| RANK | TEAM | GP | W | L | OT | PTS | POINT% |
| 1st | Tampa Bay | 37 | 20 | 15 | 2 | 42 | .568 |
| 2nd | Pittsburgh | 41 | 17 | 17 | 7 | 41 | .500 |
| t-3rd | Ottawa | 38 | 19 | 17 | 2 | 40 | .526 |
| t-3rd | Columbus | 40 | 17 | 17 | 6 | 40 | .500 |
| t-5th | Montreal | 39 | 18 | 18 | 3 | 39 | .500 |
| t-5th | Philadelphia | 40 | 17 | 18 | 5 | 39 | .488 |
| 7th | Detroit | 39 | 17 | 18 | 4 | 38 | .487 |
| t-8th | NY Rangers | 39 | 18 | 20 | 1 | 37 | .474 |
| t-8th | NY Islanders | 40 | 15 | 18 | 7 | 37 | .463 |
Tampa Bay, with games in hand, has a healthy lead on the top wild card spot and sits three points behind Boston for third place in the Atlantic Division. If the Lightning catch the Bruins, it would flip the Bruins into the wild card. It feels like both of those teams, barring significant injuries or setbacks, are still a good bet for the postseason.
But the other spot is up for grabs. The Penguins have it on points, but the Ottawa Senators (with three fewer games than the Penguins) have it by point percentage. Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Montreal are all even at .500, with a mess of teams on their heels.
It's truly a wide-open race, which makes Tuesday's game in Pittsburgh one that matters in the standings for the first time in several seasons. It also makes the game about more than the Blue Jackets simply trying to exercise their demons in the Steel City.
As a painful refresher: the Blue Jackets have not won in Pittsburgh since Nov. 13, 2015. That's 3,342 days. The only players still on the roster from that night are Boone Jenner and Jack Johnson, and in between that game and this game, Johnson:
- Played 149 games with Pittsburgh.
- Also played for the Chicago Blackhawks and NY Rangers.
- Won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche.
It's been a while.
But Tuesday's game is the first in a stretch of seven straight that will may determine if the Blue Jackets were a nice first-half story, or if they're a legitimate contender for playoff spot.
Here's what Columbus has on its schedule the next two weeks:
| Date | Opponent | Points Rank | Home/Road Record |
| Jan. 7 | @ Pittsburgh | 18th | Home: 11-7-2 |
| Jan. 9 | vs Seattle | 27th | Road: 8-11-0 |
| Jan. 11 | @ St. Louis | 17th | Home: 8-9-1 |
| Jan. 14 | vs. Philadelphia | 23rd | Road: 9-9-4 |
| Jan. 16 | vs. San Jose | 31st | Road: 5-11-5 |
| Jan. 18 | @ NY Rangers | 26th | Home: 8-9-1 |
| Jan. 20 | @ NY Islanders | 28th | Home: 7-9-2 |
That's seven straight games against teams in the bottom half of the league standings, and as an added bonus (because Columbus has been horrid on the second leg of back-to-backs), the Blue Jackets have at least one day off between all of them.
It's worth mentioning that six of the seven opponents (the exception is Philadelphia) will also be coming off a one-day break between games.
It's one of, if not the most, favorable segments of the entire Blue Jackets schedule. The road trips are close, there are no back-to-backs, and it's their only stretch of the season longer than four games against teams currently outside the playoff picture.
Not everything is trending in the Blue Jackets' direction, though.
Some of them look like tough road games. The city of Pittsburgh, for the reasons mentioned above, is Columbus' kryptonite. Can the Blue Jackets solve their road woes in a city where they haven't tasted victory in since the Obama administration? The St. Louis Blues will certainly be looking for revenge after Columbus' win Saturday night, and it's in their home barn.
Can two straight games in the Big Apple generate at least one win for the Blue Jackets?
Those are the four road games for Columbus in the seven-game stretch. Of those teams in the wild card, none have fewer road wins than the Blue Jackets. In fact, at 4-12-3 away from Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets have at least two fewer wins than any other team in the Eastern Conference and are the only team in the NHL to not have five road victories in the 2024-25 season.
If the Blue Jackets are truly going to establish themselves as a playoff contender, they're going to need to keep their sizzle at home, where they lead the league in goals and have points in 16 of 21 games.
But they're also going to need to win at least two of the road games. If they can do that and go (approximately) 5-2-0 over the next seven games, that would be 10 of 14 possible points and put them at 50 points through 47 games.
Contender? Pretender?
We're about to find out.
