Category: Sports News

The Columbus Blue Jackets have only had two players wear #54, and none since 2019. 

Today we'll look at who has worn it, what they did, and where they are now. 

Scott Harrington - Harrington played 185 games for the Blue Jackets after being traded to Columbus by Toronto with a conditional pick in the 2017 NHL Draft for Kerby Rychel on June 25, 2016. Those 185 games would be spread out over six seasons, with 2018-19 being the year he played the most games at 73. He scored 7 goals and totaled 37 points in his career with Columbus, with the 18-19 season being his most productive with 17. 

During his time in the Columbus organization, he would also play 52 games for the Cleveland Monsters, scoring 7 total points. 

Harrington would sign with San Jose in 2022 and then be traded to New Jersey in February of 2023. New Jersey would then put him on waivers a few days later, where he would be picked up by Anaheim and play 17 games. 

In 2023, Harrington would leave for Europe and play for the ZSC Lions of the Swiss League. After playing just 14 games in 23-24, he would return to North America for the 24-25 season to play for the Springfield Thunderbirds of the AHL. 

He played for the Belleville Senators last season, and is signed on to play for them again this year. He had 19 points in 69 games last season. 

Adam McQuaid - Columbus originally drafted McQuaid in the 2nd round of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. McQuaid would never play for the CBJ, though. While he was still in the OHL, he was traded to Boston by Columbus for Boston's 5th-round pick in the 2007 NHL Draft on May 16, 2007. The pick the Jackets sent to Boston turned out to be Jamie Benn. 

After playing nine years in Boston, he was traded to the Rangers in 2018. But in 2019, McQuaid was traded from New York to Columbus to help the Jackets with their playoff push. He played in 14 games before the season ended, suffering an injury that would ultimately end his career. 

On March 28, 2019, Montreal’s Andrew Shaw gave McQuaid a nasty blindside shot that took him out of the game and his career. McQuaid told The Athletic, “I definitely wasn’t in a good place physically. Then it weighed on me mentally. I wasn’t feeling like myself. I had many injuries throughout my career, unfortunately. That became part of my story. I look at it more as having overcome different injuries, come back, try to play the same way, and not have it affect my outlook on playing. But I was probably at a point where I had the most going on. I had so many different things that were really nagging me. I felt like I wanted to give more. But you hear guys say that they’re asking their bodies to do things and just not getting the response they want.”

McQuaid would finish his career 73 points and one Stanley Cup. 

Who was your favorite #54?

There are 54 days to go until opening night at NWA. 

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After Ville Koivunen’s massive eight-year contract, an already crowded Pittsburgh Penguin forward depth chart is now bursting at the seems. However, Kyle Dubas didn’t paint Koivunen as a lock to make the NHL roster coming out of training camp.

“He will still have to earn everything,” Dubas said. “As we have shown over the last few years, a long-term contract does not mean you are given anything in Pittsburgh. He will need to earn his roster spot and opportunity in training camp. He will need to finish the summer strong, show gains in power and speed on the ice in training camp and exhibition games.”

Koivunen would require waivers to be sent down, and that long-term deal just might be a poison pill for other organizations (then again, if they see the contract from a different perspective, it might not be that prohibitive).

Either way, the Pens signed Koivunen long because there is a belief he will have something to offer to the NHL team in the future. Whether that future is now, to Dubas’ point, is dependent on how Koivunen performs at training camp.

The problem is that there isn’t a lot of space for him due to a huge roster crunch right now.

Top-nine forwards, locks (9)

Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell, Evgeni Malkin, Egor Chinakhov, Ben Kindel, Tommy Novak, Andrei Kuzmenko, Nick Robertson

These nine players, it sounds safe enough to say, will all be in the lineup in a featured spot if they are healthy when the season starts on September 30th. What line some of them may be on to configure everything just right is up for grabs as far as who plays where, but this is the base of the forward group for next season.

Fourth line forwards, locks (2)

Blake Lizotte, Connor Dewar

Lizotte and Dewar were two-thirds of a great fourth line last season, both have limited wiggle room to move up the lineup and placed perfectly in the heavy lifting for d-zone starts and PK duty that the role requires.

The blender (6 for one lineup spot, up to two more roster spots)

Justin Brazeau, Elmer Soderblom, Hendrix Lapierre, Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty, Avery Hayes

All six of these players have strong cases for belonging on an NHL roster in 2026-27, though space is running short. At this point, it seems easiest and most likely to boot McGroarty and Hayes to WBS for the start of the season and count on them getting opportunities as mid-season injury replacements when and as needed. That still would require some tough choices on how to figure the rest.

—

Ultimately, one trade announcement could go a long way towards fixing the numbers. One wouldn’t think that recently re-signed players like Lizotte, Dewar or Novak will be going anywhere soon, but then again no one saw an eight-year contract to a fringe player either.

Brazeau looks to be the most obvious candidate to drop – he was a healthy scratch for much of the playoffs and the additions of players like Kuzmenko, Robertson and Lapierre could push Brazeau out of a spot in the lineup next year too. No such trade has happened just yet, though the off-season isn’t the only time to make trades. The Pens have traded players like Lars Eller and Mark Friedman away in previous October/November’s.

Another area to keep an eye on is Rakell and Rust in their mid-30’s. The team has been hesitant to move these important players but if there ever was a time where they are prepared to withstand the trade of one of them it would be now. Are the Pens beefing up numbers to brace for that? It remains unknown but could also be pre-planned.

Yet another possibility is there could be an off-season surgery that hasn’t yet been announced or even happened yet. Crosby had a wrist surgery in September 2021 that came out of the blue to the public after his efforts to rehab and deal with the issue proved to not be enough. Something similar happened with McGroarty and an unmentioned summer surgery that kept him out at the beginning of the year and was only announced on the first day of camp.

There’s obviously no outward indication that Crosby or anyone else is dealing with a lingering issue , but there’s always a chance that around training camp that a player considered a ‘lock’ could actually be IR bound at the beginning of the season. There’s also no guarantee that all the presumed locks make it to the start of the season. Last preseason alone all of Bryan Rust, Kevin Hayes, Joel Blomqvist and Jack St. Ivany got injured before Game 1 and were on the IR at the beginning of the season because of it, along with McGroarty.

Not all of those were key players but it goes to show that the injury bug is random and always just around the corner to pop up and potentially turn 17 forward candidates into a more manageable figure to find 14 healthy ones.

Whether or not that includes Koivunen and if his new contract will help him find a spot on the team remains to be seen. The Pens have too many numbers up front for the moment, though it can change in a moment’s notice.

In the doldrums of the 2026 offseason, the Philadelphia Flyers appear to be done adding to their roster, though training camp can and will throw wrenches into the plan, be it through injury or otherwise.

For instance, this time last year, we all had prospect defenseman Helge Grans penciled in as the No. 6 defenseman to play on the third defense pair, but the Swede had a training camp and preseason performance so bad that the job was decidedly handed to Noah Juulsen, who had a slow camp himself working back from a season-ending hernia.

On defense, especially, that scenario could play out for the Flyers again in some way, as Rasmus Ristolainen, perpetually a trade candidate, has only one year left on his contract, as does newcomer Simon Benoit.

No. 3: Oliver Bonk, RHD

Rather quickly, 2023 first-round pick Oliver Bonk is showing signs of NHL potential, recording a goal and assist in his NHL debut against Montreal on April 14, then making his Stanley Cup playoff debut against the Hurricanes in the 3-2 overtime loss in Game 4 on May 9.

The Flyers organization is clearly bullish on the 21-year-old; they aren't the types to hand out debuts in important games just because.

If Bonk is able to continue to perform well, add more strength and play speed, and stay healthy this time around, the former 22nd overall pick should have no issues inserting himself into the conversation for an NHL roster spot.

Last year, the competition between Juulsen and Grans had been so uninspiring that Bonk, if healthy, likely had a legitimate chance to make the roster, especially given that the Flyers technically weren't a playoff team with expectations at the time.

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That context makes things a bit more challenging this year, but a strong showing from Bonk could earn him a roster spot at the expense of someone like Ristolainen, or even David Jiricek.

No. 2: Hunter McDonald, LHD

Continuing with the theme on defense here, Hunter McDonald, the Flyers' last remaining unsigned restricted free agent, is running out of time to make an NHL impact.

McDonald, 24, made his NHL debut, like Bonk, against the Canadiens on April 14, recording his first NHL point--an assist--with a sparkling +3 rating and a McDonald classic four penalty minutes.

The hulking 6-foot-4 defenseman will be 25 years old at the end of next season, and it's up to him to prove to the Flyers that he can replace the older, more expensive veterans in Benoit and Nick Seeler and take over the roles they play for the team.

Drafted as an overager in 2022, McDonald is another prospect who is an in-house favorite, but he will know that Ty Murchison also played well in his cameo for the Flyers last year, and the organization just allocated a first-round pick to selecting Maksim Sokolovskii, another bruiser, at the 2026 NHL Draft two months ago.

With Seeler getting older and no longer shielded by trade protection, and with Benoit only under contract for one year, this could be McDonald's best shot at landing an NHL roster spot with the Flyers.

He's got some wind in his sails after making his NHL debut, but that must now carry over into training camp for the real push ahead.

No. 1: Devin Kaplan, RW

I'm sure many of you were probably expecting Jett Luchanko to be the player representing the forwards here, but the Flyers want him to play as many minutes as possible if he isn't one of the 12 best forwards on the roster... in other words: an established every-night NHLer.

Instead, I wanted to acknowledge Devin Kaplan, a 6-foot-3 right winger who made his NHL debut for the Flyers at the end of that dreadful 2024-25 season in a 5-4 loss to Buffalo.

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Kaplan, 22, played his first full pro season in the AHL for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms last year, scoring five goals, eight assists, and 13 points in 49 games before suffering a season-ending injury.

Heading into a contract year, and with the Flyers' logjam of wingers, Kaplan needs a strong camp to keep himself on the radar, and further embracing the grinder playstyle will help him do that.

The Flyers had re-signed Carl Grundstrom earlier this offseason to a one-year, $1 million deal, but they would assuredly be thrilled with the development of another one of their young prospects beating out a veteran for a roster spot, just as Nikita Grebenkin did last year, and Denver Barkey and Alex Bump did later in the season.

After signing Noel Acciari, the Flyers don't really need Grundstrom's versatility to fill in at center, which opens the door a wee bit more for a winger like Kaplan to come in and make a splash.

Plus, the Flyers traded away Garnet Hathaway this offseason, so they'll be missing their fourth-line sandpaper right wing. With Kaplan, the hope is that he can continue to grow into that kind of player, and what better time than the present to prove yourself?

The Toronto Maple Leafs had one of the busiest off-seasons in the NHL this summer, signing an abundance of UFAs as well as a few notable trades from GM John Chayka.

However, in terms of internal business, such as signing significant players to contract extensions, the organization wasn't so occupied on that front. Aside from trade acquisitions like Darren Raddysh and Emil Andrae, they re-signed defenseman Troy Stecher.

For the next little while, the Maple Leafs will remain relatively quiet with expiring contracts on the roster. In fact, no player on Toronto's roster will have an expiring contract within the next two seasons, according to PuckPedia. Some players will be eligible to sign contract extensions next off-season, but none of those deals will be officially expiring until 2027-28 is completed.

It's a unique position to be in for the Maple Leafs, especially considering that no other team in the NHL is in the same situation. The team closest to having all their players locked up for the next two campaigns is the Florida Panthers, with Lars Eller and Garnet Hathaway becoming UFAs following 2026-27.

With the Maple Leafs not having to worry about contract negotiations for NHL players for a little while, is that a good thing or a bad thing? There are two ways to look at it. 

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On one hand, the players or staff members wouldn't be distracted by negotiations or contract disputes, allowing the team to focus on hockey and results. On the flip side, not having the option to walk away from a player or two at the end of the year can handcuff Chayka and the roster potentially. In other words, there is a lack of flexibility.

Four of the six players that Chayka brought in through free agency were inked to two-year contracts. Jack Roslovic, Colton Sissons, Teddy Blueger and Zack MacEwen are all under contract through 2027-28.

Maple Leafs' Three Most Challenging Contracts For 2026-27 NHL SeasonFor the most part, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in pretty good shape when it comes to the roster's payroll. However, there are a small handful of contracts that may become challenging to deal with in the future.

Therefore, if one of those players didn't fit in with the roster, or head coach Jim Hiller's play style, or just underperforms, the simplest solution is unavailable, which would be to let that player go when the deal expires. Instead, if one of those acquisitions struggles in their first year with the team and can't really find a groove in Toronto, the franchise is stuck with him, unless they can find a trade partner.

Speaking of trades, not only could these contracts be a short-term freeze to the roster, but they might hinder any desire to add when it comes to the trade deadline, or at any other point during the season when a clear need or hole in the lineup emerges.

Making a trade will always be possible one way or another, but with the Maple Leafs' roster pretty much filled up, there isn't much room for new opportunity or adjustment.

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To combat that argument, this could be a drama-free season in terms of contract negotiations, particularly with star players. 

Auston Matthews is the star player with the most recent expiration date, as his deal is done after 2027-28. But even then, he isn't eligible to sign a contract extension until next off-season.

As for the others, William Nylander is locked in through 2031-32, which is six years remaining on his deal. Also, John Tavares and Matthew Knies signed their contract extensions two days apart in late June 2025. Tavares' expires the soonest, in three more seasons.

Even the youngsters in Easton Cowan and Gavin McKenna won't be occupied by contract negotiations for the next couple of years. Cowan has two more years left on his entry-level contract, while McKenna, of course, will be beginning his entry-level deal this coming season as he inches closer to making his NHL debut.

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There’s still a while before training camp starts but August is the final month without hockey. Let’s take the chance to set the stage now for the first part of the Penguins’ upcoming season by breaking down what they’ll be facing in the first three calendar months of the season.

The activities start even earlier than this, the Pens will be sending prospects out to Detroit from September 11-14, a departure from the recent past when Pittsburgh went to Buffalo to scrimmage. Typically the full camp has officially started right after, which should mean camp will open on or around September 14th, though many of the NHL players will trickle back and participate in informal skates prior to that.

Preseason is quick this year, just four games spread across six days from Sep 21-26. The NHL has cut out two preseason games to account for tacking on two more regular season games, boosting the total back to 84 for the first time in over 30 years. Usually the star players don’t go on the road for exhibitions, but it’s at least a quick trip to Buffalo for the final preseason game if the team wants to use that as a final tuneup before the year starts.

The regular season for the Pens kicks off in Philadelphia on September 30th. This will mark the first time Pittsburgh has played a game that counts in the month of September in franchise history.

October

The Pens get their first heavy stretch of games early in the year – playing five times in eight days from Oct 3-10. This stretch includes two games against division opponents (WSH, CBJ) but don’t get used to it – Pittsburgh doesn’t play Washington again until January 18th. The NHL has loaded up on the out-of-conference games early on in the year, giving just a little taste of these division opponents early. Overall, the Pens will play Western Conference teams eight times out of their 13 October games, including knocking out the entire season series with Utah over a 10-day stretch.

October also includes the first long road trip out west for four games in Chicago, Colorado, Vegas and Utah. Overall, Pittsburgh travels about the fewest miles of anyone in the league this season, they’ll get a chunk of that down in the early going.

A trade-off to the low miles is a frequency for back-to-back games. The Pens ease into it here with just two b-2-b’s in October. Another theme for the club will be playing on Saturday’s – they don’t get a Saturday without a game until December 19th.

Only five games are against 2026 playoff teams, but that could be misleading to assume an easy start with teams like the Caps, Mammoth and Panthers all looking to take steps forward this year, while also playing Western powers like Colorado, Vegas and Dallas.

November

November features a reprieve in the scheduling at the start of the month, with only five games in the first 18 days. That figure includes a significant amount of travel with the annual California trip against the trio of teams out west. That break erodes away a little with seven games in the last 12 days of the month, though five will be at home – including the near-annual Thanksgiving Eve home game where Calgary will be the opponent this year.

This is also shaping up to be a tricky month scheduling-wise with three instances of back-to-back games, including a weekend stint in Nashville followed by a quick turn to get to Dallas the next day. Games outside the conference continue to be the early-season trend with eight of the first 11 games of the month coming against Western teams.

By the time November ends, the Pens will have visited 9/16 of the West, virtually knocking out all their far games to go to, aside from a February road trip that will knock six out. The worm starts to turn after Thanksgiving where the Pens shift to playing more Eastern teams.

At this point, Pittsburgh will have played 27 of their 84 games, completing nearly one-third of their schedule. There’s usually a statistical to-do about the of teams in a playoff spot at this point and the perceived correlation of making the playoffs, though that will be put to the test this year since the Pens will still have 24 more games against Metropolitan Division opponents still to play and plenty of hockey left to play to make or break their season.