Looking Ahead And Handing Out Superlatives For 2023-24 Blue Jackets Season

By Will Chase on October 3, 2023 at 1:45 pm
Adam Fantilli at the Blue Jackets development camp.
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It's October.

This means the start of the 2023-24 NHL season is just around the corner.

Games get underway for real on Tuesday, Oct. 10. The Columbus Blue Jackets kick things off two days later at Nationwide Arena when they host John Tortorella's Philadelphia Flyers.

As we ramp up, and Pascal Vincent's club finishes out the pre-season string with the Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals, we look ahead to the regular season and hand out team superlatives and awards.

Team MVP

Assuming health, and that's never something you can pencil in when talking about the Blue Jackets, Johnny Gaudreau is the most complete player. You know exactly what you're getting from him, and you can safely project he'll be among the team leaders for categories including goals, points, and assists. Last year, he led the team with 74 points and 53 assists and was third with 21 goals.

Even though some might characterize last season as a down year for No. 13, and he did experience a 41-point reduction from the season prior, he was in a completely different situation with a brand new supporting cast.

Now he's a year in with a group he's more comfortable with and you add in the likes of rookie Adam Fantilli into the fold.

Top Rookie

It's not a stretch to say the best first-year player on the team will likely have something to say about being one of the Calder finalists at the end of the season as the league's top rookie.

Fantilli might not win the Calder, but he is absolutely slotted to be one of the best young talents in the game.

Fantilli has two assists so far during the pre-season and made highlight reels during the Traverse City Prospects Tournament. This might still be playing out for Vincent and the remaining pre-season games will help, but the only question might be where does Fantilli play in the lineup?

As long as he's getting minutes from the jump, there lies a great opportunity for Fantilli to become the fourth player in franchise history to score at least 40 points. That might even be too low a total to pin on Fantilli, but we want to keep the excitement in check.

With that said, I don't think many would be surprised if Fantilli scored 50-60 points this season.

Leading Goal Scorer

Between Patrik Laine and Kirill Marchenko, and maybe another contender emerges, the Blue Jackets have players who can bury the biscuit.

Last season, offensive numbers were down all over the place.

The team scored 213 goals (30th) and 2.60 goals per game (30th). A season prior, they were 14th in the league for goals (258) and goals per game (3.15).

Laine was limited to 55 games and placed second on the team with 22 goals. And where would this team have been without Marchenko's second-half emergence, scoring a franchise-rookie record 21 goals in just 59 games?

We've been waiting to see the Laine of old in which he averaged 36 goals in his first three seasons as a Winnipeg Jet. Laine is only 25 years old and has already been in the league for seven seasons. His Jackets tenure has been odd, considering how it started with the trade in 2020 during the league's shortened-season reboot during COVID under Tortorella, his first year with Brad Larsen, and now another new head coach in Vincent.

Laine has a natural relationship with Vincent going back to their Jets' days and it looks like Laine has a budding instant chemistry with Fantilli.

Comeback Player of the Year

This is the award no one seeks as it implies a player had to overcome some adversity. But for those that do win it, they've found a way to rebound in a big way.

Contenders for this include Cole Sillinger who scored 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 64 games and was held out of the lineup due to injuries and a healthy scratch. He joined the Cleveland Monsters at the end of last season to help their playoff push.

Remember, he posted 31 points (16 goals, 15 assists) in 79 games during his rookie season.

Elvis Merzlikins is another contender.

Looking to transform into the goaltender the Blue Jackets committed big bucks to in the form of a five-year contract extension two years ago, he'll have a new goaltending coach in Niklas Backstrom.

Merzlikins stayed back in Columbus over the off-season, opting to skip the IIHF World Championships and forgo playing for Team Latvia. As he told The Athletic's Aaron Portzline in a Q&A interview, he's determined to turn things around.

I’m not done here. I have a lot of plans here. I won’t tell you them. Enough talking. I’m not going to talk much, I just want to work. I just want to have fun. I want to enjoy happy moments with my family and my teammates. Other people who doubt me and they’ve showed me that, I will never forget them and I’m going to show them that they’re wrong.

For the sake of Merzlikins' status and his future in Columbus going forward, and what a bounce-back season would mean, not only for him but the Jackets as a team, we're going to take him at his word because it's the quintessential put-up or shut-up year.

That he'll be able to get back on track and resemble the goaltender that we saw before the contract.

What does that look like?

Merzlikins doesn't have to be a Vezina candidate, though who wouldn't take that?

If he can simply get back to form, stay healthy, and lean on his defense in front, his game should simplify and allow him to regain confidence. He has a career 3.31 GAA and .906 SV%. In 2019-20, he was 13-19-8 in 31 starts and posted a 2.35 GAA and .923 SV% with five shutouts.

In 2020-21, he was 8-12-5, 2.77, and .916. If Merzlikins can get numbers back in that area, we'll all take that.

He struggled in Saturday's 4-3 pre-season loss after surrendering three second-period goals to the Sabres.

Most Surprising Player

Two seasons ago Justin Danforth and Alexandre Texier emerged for the Blue Jackets.

Texier had 20 points (11 goals, nine assists) in 36 games before a broken finger and personal time away from the club led to him playing a year overseas. Danforth had 14 points (10 goals, four assists) in 45 games and carved out a major role for the first time in his career, parlaying that success into a two-year contract extension.

Will either player replicate the success they found two seasons ago or will someone else emerge?

Jordan Dumais and Denton Mateychuk are getting major looks right now during camp, and it seemed more than likely they'd play in juniors this year since neither is old enough to play in the AHL.

Yet, one or both might make the training camp cut decisions tough. Vincent has surely taken notice of Mateychuk.

Underrated Player

Sean Kuraly has filled his role for the Blue Jackets, and probably better than expected.

Before the start of the 2021-22 campaign, he signed for four seasons at $2.5 million through 2024-25. Have you been pleasantly surprised by his production?

Playing the role of bottom-six grinding center to a tee, Kuraly provides grit but offense, registering 50 points (25 goals, 25 assists) in his first two seasons in Columbus and leading the team with 427 hits over the last two years.

A dependable player for the team, expect much of the same going forward.

So to mix it up, we're going to go with Dmitri Voronkov who will go home with the unofficial award.

Voronkov is a physical specimen.

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