Colorado Avalanche
Washington CapitalsThe Columbus Blue Jackets were the most honest team in the NHL last season. At 5-on-5 they generated 2.63 expected goals per 60 minutes, ninth in the league, and allowed 2.43, thirteenth. A 52 percent team. They scored 174 goals on 182 expected and allowed 162 on 168, which nets out to minus-two goals of luck across an entire season, about as close to zero as any roster gets. What the chances said Columbus was, Columbus was: a good team, not quite a playoff team, 92 points and fifth in the Metropolitan.
That makes the summer easier to grade than most, because there is no luck to argue about. The Blue Jackets needed to be a 54 percent team, and general manager Don Waddell's answer was to let Boone Jenner, the 33-year-old captain and a Blue Jacket for 13 seasons, sign in Washington, let Mason Marchment sign in San Jose, and send the 43rd pick, a 2027 third and a 2028 fifth to Colorado for Valeri Nichushkin. Two forwards out, one in, no first-round pick spent, and the roster is better at the one thing it needed to be better at.
What Columbus lost
Jenner's departure is the emotional story and the smaller hockey one. He played 894 minutes at 5-on-5 last season and was a 50 percent player, on the ice for 2.79 expected goals for per 60 and 2.74 against, with 11 goals on 14.6 expected and 15 primary assists. Across all situations, where his penalty-kill minutes weigh in, his share was 46 percent. He scored 13 goals and 38 points in 67 games. That is a useful third-line centre, and Washington has given him four years at $5.75 million to be one, starting at 33. Columbus was right not to.
Marchment is the loss that should sting more. He was a 54 percent player in 992 minutes, on the ice for 2.26 expected goals against per 60, one of the best suppression figures among the regular forwards, with 14 goals and 35 points at 5-on-5 and a plus-20 goal differential. San Jose gave him five years. At 31, that is a contract Columbus was correct to walk away from too, but the minutes he played were good minutes.
Between them, Jenner and Marchment took 1,886 5-on-5 minutes out of the roster. Nichushkin played 972 for Colorado.
What Columbus bought
Nichushkin's box score last season was ordinary: 17 goals and 49 points in 72 games, a 10.6 percent shooting rate, well down from the 17.7 and 17.8 of the two seasons before. Colorado, with Martin Necas and Artturi Lehkonen to pay and a cap to manage, sold him for a second, a third and a fifth. It was the cheapest a 57 percent forward has been in years.
Because that is what he is. Across all situations Nichushkin was on the ice for 4.02 expected goals for per 60 and 2.98 against, a 57 percent share. At 5-on-5 his line generated 3.23 expected goals per 60 and allowed 2.20, a 59 percent share, on a Colorado team that was 57 percent overall. Some of that is playing with Nathan MacKinnon. Not all of it: 2.20 against per 60 is a suppression number, not a MacKinnon number, and it was better than Colorado's team rate of 2.30. His 17 goals came on 22.7 expected. His 12 goals at 5-on-5 came on 14.6. He was, like Luke Evangelista in New Jersey, a play-driver whose price was set by a cold shooting year.
The trend chart on his shooting is the part worth being careful about, because it is the reason he was cheap and it is also the reason he will not be cheap for long.
Where he fits
Columbus's forward group at 5-on-5 was solid and shallow. Adam Fantilli, whose contract is its own story, generated 2.83 expected goals per 60 on a 52 percent share. Kirill Marchenko 2.82 and 52. Charlie Coyle, at 55 percent with 19 primary assists, was the best play-driver among the veterans. Below them, Conor Garland was 47 percent at 2.93 against, Kent Johnson 50, Miles Wood 47, and the bottom six was where the 52 percent team lost the two points of share that kept it out of the playoffs.
Nichushkin's 59 percent on Fantilli's wing, or Marchenko's, is the single biggest improvement Columbus could have made to that group without spending a first, and it was made for a second. It also moves Coyle or Sean Monahan down a line, which pushes Garland and Wood's minutes toward players who can hold a 50 percent share. Ryan Lomberg, signed for two years to replace some of the Jenner and Marchment minutes, was on the ice for 1.98 expected goals for per 60 in Calgary, and is not going to help; the improvement has to come from the top.
The two contracts that matter more
The summer's real risk is not on the wing. Jet Greaves, who saved 16.5 goals above expected in 55 games, the figure that turned a 52 percent team into a 92-point one, is a restricted free agent without a contract. Elvis Merzlikins, the backup, was seven goals below expected in 30. Columbus's goaltending was plus-nine as a tandem and the difference between the two halves of it was 24 goals. If Greaves is not signed and in the net on opening night, none of the forward arithmetic matters. And Fantilli, the 21-year-old who played the most 5-on-5 minutes of any Columbus forward, is in the same position.
The case against, stated fairly
Nichushkin is 31, his shooting percentage just fell seven points in a season, and he has played more than 62 games once in six years. The 59 percent share came alongside the best centre in the world, and Columbus does not have one. He is signed at $6.125 million through 2029-30, which is fair value for the 2023-24 version and an overpay for the 2025-26 one at 34. Jenner's departure removes the dressing room's centre of gravity from a young team, and the Marchment minutes, some of the best suppression on the roster, are being replaced by a fourth-liner. And none of this is worth a line of type until Greaves and Fantilli are signed.
Where this lands
A 59 percent play-driver for three mid-round picks, replacing a 50 percent captain and a 54 percent winger whose new contracts run into their mid-30s elsewhere. No first-round pick spent. The forward group's top six got better at the one thing a 52 percent team needed.
Nichushkin is 31 and coming off a 10.6 percent year, his share was built beside MacKinnon, and Marchment's suppression minutes went to Ryan Lomberg. The starting goaltender and the best young centre are both unsigned in September.
What it means
Columbus will be judged on whether it makes the playoffs, and the honest version of that question is whether the 5-on-5 expected goal share climbs from 52 to 54. Nichushkin on the top line is worth about a point of that on his own if his share holds near 55 on a lesser team, and two if it stays near 59. Watch his shooting percentage too: at his six-year rate he is a 22-goal player on last season's shots, and on a Columbus power play with room for him, the shots go up. If he is at 20 goals and the team is at 54 percent by the New Year, Waddell bought a first-line winger for a second-round pick and lost a captain the numbers did not miss. And if Greaves is still unsigned in October, this piece will have been about the wrong player.