The 2025-26 season has already reached the quarter mark. With the league-wide schedule compressed to make way for the winter Olympics, things are moving quickly.
As a result of that schedule, the Blue Jackets screamed through their latest 10-game block in just 18 days - capped off by 6 games in the last 9 days. In that 9 day stretch stretch, they played in all 4 time zones.
Typically, teams look at their season as a series of 10-game blocks, so they can better gauge where they stand over a longer stretch of data. Now that they have hit two of those blocks, the season is a quarter of the way finished.
So, it feels like enough evaluation time to really step back and look at where this team sits amongst the competition this season. Through 20 games, they are 10-8-2 (22 points). That has them just below the playoff line, and some of the teams around them have games in hand.
Suffice to say, this is not where we wanted this team to be at this point in the season. They have had stretches of good play, but overall I think it's fair to say that they have been disappointing.
Still, they are on a roughly 90-point pace, so they aren't too far off. If they can improve over their next block of 10 games, they will be right in the mix if we revisit at that time.
But, they would do themselves a favor by plugging a couple of gaping holes within the lineup. Let's take a look on the next couple of slides.