The season is over, the Columbus Blue Jackets are focusing on next year, and we have a lot of off-season activity to look forward to in the meantime.
First, we reflect on the 2023-24 season and what lies ahead for the club in the coming days, weeks, and months.
The Blue Jackets coaches and players had their end-of-season media availability last week, and captain Boone Jenner had a lot of interesting things to say.
Columbus finished 27-43-12 with 66 points and 29th in the NHL to secure the fourth-best odds of landing the first pick in the upcoming NHL draft lottery. Slightly better than the 25-48-9 mark and 59 points a season ago.
The finish is not what the team wanted, but is there improvement?
Are the vibes around this team today better than a year ago heading into the offseason?
"I would definitely say it's different with different guys in the room," Jenner said. "But also just the situation we're in with the general manager and waiting to see what happens there.
"As a group, as players, we focus on what we can focus on right now, and that's getting ready for next year and taking some positives from this year that I thought we grew on. But also looking ourselves in the mirror and the spot we're in is not the spot we want to be in.
"I think it's easy to say turn the page, but there's some work that has to be done to actually turn it and get us back to where we want to be."
The incoming general manager will have a lot to say about the Blue Jackets roster as presently constructed and how they'll shape the team's future as they try to build back towards contention status.
It's the opportunity the franchise needs, and with that does come some understandable uncertainty.
"Personally, I've never been in this spot where we don't have a general manager, and with that, it's part of the business that there's a lot of uncertainties there," Jenner said.
"We'll reflect the next couple days or weeks here of things either personally or as a group that we want to be better at. Especially for myself and the other leaders on the team of what we want to bring into next year and start turning that page and focusing on that.
"It's uncertainties for sure."
Jenner is the longest-tenured Blue Jacket going back to his rookie season in 2013-14. With changes to come, the goal is simple among Jenner and the team's brass.
"We want the same thing," Jenner said. "We want to be back into the playoffs and being a winning team. Throughout that, it's conversations of 'where do you think we can be better,' and that's what it comes down to.
"My job is to take care of myself and my game but also be the leader in that room."
Mixed with any uncertainties right now, the new general manager will provide a blend of new excitement for what's ahead.
"When it's right now, you're probably thinking more uncertainties and unease," Jenner said. "But at the same time, when it happens it's going to be some excitement. It's also exciting for our group, and it's going to be new eyes, new thoughts, new everything on our group, and see where that takes us."
The Blue Jackets franchise has been seeking stability and consistency since the John Tortorella days. Since Tortorella and the Jackets parted ways in 2021, Columbus has employed three head coaches, and who's to say what's coming in that department once the new GM is in his chair?
"It's tough to gain that traction when the last couple years we haven't won three, four games in a row where you can feel that and feel that as a group of 'this is how we're going to win, this is what it feels like,' something to fall back on that way," Jenner said.
"That's where the good teams...they go on a couple runs like that a year where you're winning five, six games in a row. That's all part of it. It's being consistent. You see the best teams do it no matter what happens the night before. They know exactly how they're going to play the next night.
"It's definitely a recipe for a winning team and somewhere we want to get to."
The best thing for this club is hiring someone with a brand new perspective and fresh eyes to help shape a very young and talented roster.
As The Athletic's Aaron Portzline said in his article on Apr. 19, president John Davidson admitted the Blue Jackets need just that.
Our culture ... it needs to be improved, absolutely, Davidson said. We have to improve it. That's just what it is, that's just me being honest.
When you make changes at (the GM level), it should stimulate everything in the organization, from A to Z. This guy is going to come in and make up his mind on things. He'll have a look at the entire organization. Everybody here now understands that, that we're going to look at everything.
Lip service until it happens, but it sounds like the Blue Jackets brass knows what's needed. Now they have to execute it.
