Heading into the 2026-27 season, the 23-year-old forward, who signed a three-year, $13.875 million contract ($4.625 million average annual value) with Columbus on Saturday and avoided an arbitration hearing, said he is ready to lead the charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for us as a group, it\u2019s kind of enough talking about it and more so going out there and doing it, and putting the results in each and every night,\u201d Sillinger said Wednesday. \u201cI think everyone on our team is putting in the work. There\u2019s no doubt about that as far as how the summer has been treated and the last two years for me, personally, obviously there were years of missing the playoff by a couple of points (in 2024-25) and last year as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Columbus has not qualified for the postseason since 2019-20. The Blue Jackets came close last season but went 2-8-1 in their final 11 games, finishing fifth in the Metropolitan Division (40-30-12), six points behind the third-place Philadelphia Flyers, and seven points behind the Ottawa Senators for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2024-25, Columbus (40-33-9) finished two points behind the New Jersey Devils for third in the Metropolitan and two points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild card from the East.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat all shapes us to where we are now and motivates us to get to where we want to be,\u201d Sillinger said. \u201cI thought we had a better chance last year than the previous year, but ultimately, it\u2019s the bond you create through the whole year, leading up to that point where ultimately you\u2019re not even thinking of getting in the playoffs or anything, you\u2019re just so connected as a group and know that ultimately, it will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t happen last season, and coach Rick Bowness made his feelings known during an emotional media availability following a 2-1 loss to the Washington Capitals to end the season April 14.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m back, but if I\u2019m back, I\u2019m changing this culture,\u201d Bowness said at the time. \u201cThese guys they don\u2019t care; losing is not important enough to them, it doesn\u2019t bother them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowness was hired to replace Dean Evason on Jan. 12 with Columbus last in the Metropolitan at 19-19-7 and helped the Blue Jackets turn things around. They were second in the division on March 24 prior to their collapse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bowness will return as coach this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be great,\u201d Sillinger said. \u201cObviously that switch up happened last year and he came in and our group went on a little bit of a run and obviously the last 10-12 games of the year didn\u2019t end up as we wanted to. So, there are big expectations I know for myself individually and for our team collectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a bitter taste in everyone\u2019s mouths with the way the year ended, and I know there\u2019s a bitter taste in \u2018Bones\u2019 mouth too. To have him and to get on the same page with him right from the start of training camp, I think is going to be huge for our group going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into the 2026-27 season, the 23-year-old forward, who signed a three-year, $13.875 million contract ($4.625 million average…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-832368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}