COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets:

Item No. 1: Trader Don

A month ago, it seemed as if Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell was ready to consider the return of captain Boone Jenner later this month as the equivalent of a trade deadline acquisition, a big boost as the young club tries to grab a playoff spot down the stretch.

But then center Sean Monahan needed surgery for a sprained wrist. And then Kirill Marchenko needed surgery to reset a fractured jaw. Just like that, two-thirds of the top forward line was lost, and with it went the Blue Jackets’ ability to win games by outscoring opponents.

Waddell is now looking at the March 7 trade deadline through a much different lens. He was one of the NHL’s more aggressive GMs last week in his search for a top-six scoring forward who can restore the Blue Jackets’ margin for error in games.

“We had some irons in the fire,” Waddell told The Athletic. “But no action yet.”

Waddell said he’d be willing to trade one of the Blue Jackets’ two first-round picks this coming summer — they also own Minnesota’s after the David Jiricek trade — but only for a player who has remaining term on their contract, not a rental player.

But he also wouldn’t rule out trading one of the Blue Jackets’ mid-round picks — they have two fourth-round picks this year, plus two third-round and three fourth-round picks in 2026 — for a veteran player with an expiring contract after this season.

“I’d like to add somebody who can play in our top six, somebody who can score,” Waddell said. “We were getting through it without (Monahan) for a while, but then Marchy happens … you can’t expect to keep scoring goals when you take those guys out of your lineup.”

PROVY TIES IT ON THE PK!💥@FanaticsBook | #CBJ pic.twitter.com/T8FTSOBFQx

— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) February 7, 2025

Meanwhile, Waddell said talks with the Blue Jackets’ most prominent pending unrestricted free agents — defenseman Ivan Provorov and forward Mathieu Olivier — have remained productive and amicable.

Both players figure to garner significant interest on the trade market — the Boston Bruins have taken runs at Olivier at the past two deadlines — but Waddell said he’s “100 percent” open to keeping them beyond March 7, even if contracts aren’t signed.

“We’ve exchanged ideas and numbers on both sides,” he said. “We’re not there yet, but there are deals to be made, for sure.

“Now that the (NHL salary cap) is going up, and we have the numbers, it’s a little bit clearer now. But the thing I want to be careful with is term.”

Waddell wants to keep defenseman Dante Fabbro, too, given the way Fabbro has meshed with No. 1 defenseman Zach Werenski since he was claimed off waivers from Nashville earlier this season. Numbers have not yet been exchanged with Fabbro’s camp, but there are plans to talk soon, Waddell said.

Item No. 2: Reinforcements

Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason said there are two whiteboards hanging side by side in the coaches’ office. The one on the right shows the current makeshift lineup, and the one on the left projects what the Blue Jackets might look like when play resumes following the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Jenner, who has missed the entire season to this point after a shoulder injury late in training camp, will return to the lineup on Feb. 22 vs. Chicago. It’s expected that Fabbro, out with a concussion since Feb. 2, will be ready to resume play, too.

“He’s doing much better,” Waddell said.

Fabbro will slot right back in next to Werenski. Where Jenner fits into the lineup remains to be seen, and Evason wasn’t saying.

During training camp, Jenner played left winger after spending several seasons at center. But with Monahan out, and the Blue Jackets struggling on faceoffs, Jenner could return to the middle, at least for the time being.

“We’ve talked (as coaches) about (Jenner’s) play, his game, and just him as a human being, and those guys (the coaches) are very close with him,” Evason said. “(Assistant coach Jared Boll), in particular, played with him plus coached him.

“So I’ve been given some firsthand accounts of who he is as a person and who he is as a player. So, am I excited about calling his name and having him jump over the boards? 100 percent.”

Beyond Jenner and Fabbro, the reinforcements get murky.

Marchenko did not require his broken jaw to be wired shut, which means he could return sooner than the typical 6 to 8 weeks required for a jaw to heal. He was in Nationwide Arena on Saturday, working with the training staff on a protective mask that could allow him to play sooner than expected.

The Blue Jackets expect Monahan and defenseman Erik Gudbranson to return by the middle or end of March, but Monahan may return in a limited capacity. He had surgery late last month to repair sprained ligaments in his right wrist, so it’s unclear if he’ll be able to step right back into his role as the Blue Jackets’ top faceoff man.

The biggest wild card of all is Yegor Chinakhov, who hasn’t played since Nov. 27 (35 games) due to a lower-back injury that he can’t seem to shake.

Chinakhov was in New York last week to see another specialist and a surgeon, and was told again that there’s nothing structurally wrong with his back and nothing that could be fixed with a surgical procedure, Waddell said.

“It’s all on him right now, when he feels like he can go,” Waddell said. “He’s seen all the doctors he can see. Everything is good in that way, he just keeps feeling some tightness (when he skates).

“You know how these things work. Doctors can say what they say and say what they see, but the individual has to feel as if he’s ready to go.”

Item No. 3: Take 5, Zach Werenski

Take 5 is a quick, breezy sitdown with a Blue Jackets player, coach or front-office staffer. This week’s features Werenski:

1. What part of Columbus is home, and why?

I live in New Albany. Gus (Nyquist) was one of the first guys I knew who moved out that way. And then Boone was going out that way, then Elvis. I was looking at Upper Arling and Dublin, and I really like those areas a lot, but I couldn’t find anything that was newer, house-wise. There’s not a lot to do, but that’s OK, ’cause I really don’t do anything anyways. Monahan is out there, and Meredith (Gaudreau) is there with the kids, so it’s great that so many of us are so close.

2. Favorite restaurants.

After practice, we go to Northstar (Cafe) a lot. Healthy food, good food. We don’t really go out that much (for dinner) because my fiance (Odette) likes to cook. We do like Cento in German Village. Lindey’s (Restaurant and Bar) is one of our favorites there, too. We go to Ocean Prime at Easton a lot. That’s closer to us than downtown.

3. Best recent movie or show you’ve streamed?

I’m not a big movie guy, to be honest. I like older movies, mostly. But streaming … I just finished “Mayor of Kingstown.” Awesome. One of my favorite shows. Monny’s watching it now and he’s obsessed with it. I just started watching “Lioness.” Really good. I’m halfway through the first season.

4. Who is the best player you’ve played with and against?

Best I’ve played with would have to be the Breadman, (Artemi) Panarin. Best player against … that’s tough. I think (Nathan) MacKinnon is pretty insane. (Nikita) Kucherov is insane, too. This is hard, right? I mean, (Connor) McDavid’s there. They’re all different, but MacKinnon is so tough because he can beat you in so many ways. When he’s on, he’s pretty impressive to watch.

5. Which teammate should have a podcast?

If he spoke English, (Dmitri) Voronkov. He’d be hilarious on a podcast. His English is getting better. He’s so funny. He knows enough words that you can tell what he’s saying, but he says everything at the right time. Just his body language, too. Music comes on and he’s dancing in the middle of the room. He’s a goofball. Guddy (Gudbranson) would be a good podcast guy because he likes to talk. It would probably be a lot, though. He’d get too into it.

Item No. 4: Snacks

• Adam Fantilli, who has ascended to the No. 1 center’s role in Monahan’s absence, played 26:59 in Saturday’s loss to the New York Rangers. That’s the highest in Fantilli’s young career, but it’s the most ice time a Blue Jackets player has drawn in a regulation game in over 22 years. Only Ray Whitney (27:19 on Oct. 14, 2002; and 27:16 on Dec. 31, 2002) has played more in a game for Columbus. Since Jan. 7, when Monahan went down, Fantilli has 7-8-15 and a plus-7 rating in 16 games, playing 20:57 (13th-most among NHL forwards) per game.

• Evason was asked this week if he’d ever in his coaching career had this much trust in a 20-year-old center. “If you would’ve said that to us two months ago, that ‘Mo’ would be playing 24 minutes at this point, I would’ve thought you were crazy,” Evason said. “But I think it’s a credit to him and what he has done, and the work that he has put in — not as a skilled hockey player, but as a pro — to be able to play in all situations. Defensive zone faceoffs, in a 2-2 game … umm … is it exciting for us, as an organization? Absolutely, to have somebody like that step up in the absence of a Monahan or a Boone Jenner or someone that was in that position? It’s fantastic.”

• Werenski extended his home point streak to 21 games with an assist on Saturday. It’s the fourth-longest streak by a defenseman in NHL history, trailing only Bobby Orr (25), Paul Coffey (23) and Phil Housley (21). If Werenski keeps going after the break, he’d match Orr’s record on March 1 in Ohio Stadium when the Blue Jackets play the Detroit Red Wings in the Stadium Series. We checked with the NHL on this: That game will count as a Blue Jackets home game.

• Werenski has 17-42-59 through 56 games, already surpassing his career best in points (57) set last season. But with two assists in the last two games, Werenski has 254 career assists, leaving him only four helpers behind franchise leader Rick Nash. Also, Jenner is getting back into the lineup just in time. Werenski, with 361 career points, is only three behind Jenner for third place on the franchise’s all-time points list.

• Let that rumor mill churn: Nationwide Arena’s press box was packed for Thursday’s game vs. Utah. There were at least 21 scouts on hand, including two each for Carolina, Colorado, Dallas and New Jersey. Among the dignitaries: Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland, Buffalo’s assistant GM Jason Karmanos, New Jersey’s director of player personnel Al Santilli, Carolina’s director of pro scouting Mark Craig, and Dallas head scout Paul McIntosh. By Saturday, the crowd had shrunk to five scouts, including MacFarland, whose son plays in the AAA Blue Jackets program. Among the Saturday group was Winnipeg director of pro scouting Peter Ratchuk.

• Kent Johnson’s goal on Saturday was his 17th of the season, a new career high. But it wasn’t his most impressive score of the week. On Tuesday in Buffalo, he threw the brakes on a rush near the left dot then spun away from Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram and fired backhand, beating Buffalo goaltender James Reimer to the far post. It may go down as a goal-of-the-year candidate. Yes, he was picking a spot. “If I tried to shoot blocker (near post), it would have hit (Byram’s) shinpads, so you have to go glove,” Johnson said. “And when a goalie doesn’t know a shot’s coming, their hands are down. So, yeah, the only place you’ve got there is high glove.”

• Johnson said he lined up next to Byram later in the period for a faceoff. “I didn’t know it was him (defending on that goal), and he was like, ‘Why’d you have to do that?’” Johnson said, laughing. “I thought he was talking about something else. Before our power play, I was cleaning up this huge pile of snow on the half-wall. I thought he was chirping me for that, not the goal.” Asked how many times he’d watched a replay of the goal, Johnson smiled. “Quite a few, I’ll be honest. Double-digits.”

• Sunday Gathering trivia: Provorov’s short-handed goal in Thursday’s OT loss to Utah was the first of his 669-game NHL career, including 137 games with the Blue Jackets. Short-handed goals are fluky, of course, and not every player has a role on the penalty kill. But which player has played the most games for the Blue Jackets without scoring a short-handed goal?

• Olivier’s fight with Buffalo defenseman Dennis Gilbert last Tuesday, only three seconds into the game, is tied with two others for the earliest fight in a game by a Columbus player. You can probably guess the other two: Derek Dorsett fought Nashville’s Jordan Tootoo three seconds into a game on Nov. 19, 2011, and Jared Boll fought Tootoo, then with Detroit, on Jan. 21, 2013.

• Olivier has a career-high 99 penalty minutes, good for third in the NHL behind Boston’s Nikita Zadorov (117) and Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk (101). With his next infraction, Olivier will become the first Blue Jackets player in almost a decade to have 100-plus PIMs. The last time it happened was 2015-16 when both Scott Hartnell (112) and Dalton Prout (102) hit triple digits. My, how this game has changed: In both 2000-01 and 2006-07, the Jackets had four players amass 100-plus penalty minutes.

• Like every other NHL team, a collection of Blue Jackets players warm up for games with a soccer ball. It’s no different than kids playing in the backyard, really. Things get broken, arguments are commonplace, and the ball gets lost. This scene was captured by the Blue Jackets social media team before Saturday’s game when the ball was lodged in the ducts at event level.

Just your average hockey player warmup nothing to see here pic.twitter.com/1oIFnM6hpe

— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) February 8, 2025

• The NHL this week plans to reveal the layout it will use for the ice rink, the stages, the cannon’s prominent display, etc. in Ohio Stadium for the outdoor game. By the end of this week, NHL personnel will begin arriving in Columbus, with the ice trucks soon to follow.

• Saturday’s loss to the Rangers marked only the fourth time in Blue Jackets history that a game was played in which neither club had a power play. It didn’t happen in the franchise’s first 17 seasons but has happened four times since the 2018-19 season. The previous games: Nov. 19, 2018 at Toronto (a 4-2 loss); April 6, 2019 at Ottawa (a 6-2 win); and March 13, 2021 vs. Dallas (4-3 OT win).

• Trivia answer (this one surprised us): Nick Foligno played in 599 games for Columbus and ranks among the franchise’s top five in just about every major offensive category. But he never scored a short-handed goal. David Savard (597 games) is just behind him.

(Photo of Don Waddell: Dave Sandford / NHLI via Getty Images)