Columbus eliminated
The Columbus Blue Jackets were knocked out of playoff contention after the Philadelphia Flyers took the Carolina Hurricanes to overtime, extinguishing Columbus’s hopes. Local dispatches confirmed the result ended Columbus’s bid to make the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs. (dispatch.com) (sportingnews.com)
Columbus was knocked out of the Stanley Cup playoff race on April 13, when Philadelphia reached overtime against Carolina and locked up the last path ahead of the Blue Jackets. (dispatch.com) The Flyers’ game with the Hurricanes went beyond regulation Monday night, which guaranteed Philadelphia at least one standings point. That was enough to end Columbus’s postseason chase before the Blue Jackets finished their own schedule. (dispatch.com) Philadelphia then beat Carolina 3-2 in a shootout and secured its first playoff berth since 2020. Columbus finished outside the Eastern Conference field after spending the final week needing help from other teams. (usatoday.com) The elimination extended Columbus’s playoff drought to six straight seasons. The Blue Jackets have not reached the postseason since 2020, when they advanced through the pandemic-era qualifying round and then lost in five games to Tampa Bay in the first round. (nhl.com) The standings show how narrow the miss was. Columbus finished 40-30-12 for 92 points, while Philadelphia took the Metropolitan Division’s third automatic berth with 98 points and Pittsburgh claimed the top wild card with the same total. (espn.com) The Blue Jackets were in much better shape less than three weeks earlier. National Hockey League data shows Columbus went 7-1-3 from March 5 through March 25 and sat second in the Metropolitan Division, one point ahead of Pittsburgh at that point. (nhl.com) The season turned late. Columbus went 2-7-1 over its next 10 games, was outscored 33-20 in that stretch, and lost ground in a crowded Eastern Conference race. (nhl.com) Injuries hit at the same time. Defenseman Damon Severson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury on March 26, while forwards Dmitri Voronkov and Mathieu Olivier also went out near the end of March, thinning the lineup during the final push. (nhl.com) The offense also dried up in April. After scoring 3.31 goals per game over a 36-game stretch from Jan. 1 through March 31, Columbus averaged two goals per game over its next six, according to NHL.com. (nhl.com) So the Blue Jackets’ season ended not with their own final buzzer, but with an out-of-town overtime point in Philadelphia. For Columbus, that was the number that closed the door. (dispatch.com)
