We’ve passed the halfway point of the 2025-26 season in leagues around the world, and Blue Jackets drafted players are performing as they try to move up the ranks and make it to the NHL.
How have CBJ prospects around college hockey, the Canadian junior leagues, the American Hockey League and the world stage fared? We’ll take a look at some standout performers, how things are going with the team’s AHL affiliate in Cleveland, and check out some other notes in this edition of the Prospect Report.
Throughout the season, you can stay up-to-date on top performers each week at BlueJackets.com/Prospects.
Three Stars (So Far)
- Jackson Smith (Penn State, NCAA): The Blue Jackets top pick in the 2025 draft at 14th overall has excelled in his first season with the Nittany Lions. An excellent skater with a big frame (6-4, 196), Smith also has offensive instincts, which have been shown with three goals in his last five games with No. 6 Penn State. The defenseman has six goals and 14 points in 20 games thus far and was one of Canada’s last cuts from its World Juniors team at age 18, though it seems likely he’ll be on the roster next season.
- William Whitelaw (Western Michigan, NCAA): Whitelaw has found a home with the defending national champion Broncos, posting more than a point per game (14-9-23 in 22 games) in his junior season to tie for eighth in college hockey in goal-scoring. After stints at Wisconsin and Michigan, the 2023 third-round pick brings scoring capabilities and an endless motor to the No. 5-ranked Broncos.
- Sergei Ivanov (SKA St. Petersburg, KHL): The 2023 fifth-round pick has posted eye-catching numbers throughout his KHL career, and now he’s stuck with one of Russia’s traditional powers and has posted a 2.57 GAA and .923 save percentage. The 21-year-old got off to a tough start and even spent a spell in the minor leagues but has proved himself as the season has gone on, emerging as the team’s No. 1 goalie and topping 40 saves in three outings. He has a .932 save percentage in his last 17 appearances.
Checking In On Cleveland
The AHL affiliate of the Blue Jackets is tied for fifth place in the AHL’s seven-team North Division with an 18-14-5-1 record, though the Monsters are just three points behind third-place Toronto now that the season has passed the midway point.
Blue Jackets director of player personnel/Cleveland general manager Chris Clark praised head coach Trent Vogelhuber for his work with the squad, which doesn’t have some of the veteran talent that others in the league boast but does have some prospects worth keeping an eye on. Here are some highlights of some of the youngsters who are trying to work their way to the NHL level, with comments from Clark included.
The team’s AHL All-Star Classic representative, center Luca Del Bel Belluz, is tied for Cleveland’s team lead with 27 points, including 10 goals, in 26 games. A 22-year-old second-round draft pick in 2022, Del Bel Belluz has shown he can hang at the NHL level but continues to develop in the AHL. Clark said it makes sense for Del Bel Belluz to remain in Cleveland and take on a lead role rather than play limited time in the NHL. “If you’re young, you need to play. You don’t need to be on the fourth line or getting limited minutes. He needs to be on the power play. He’s a power-play guy. He’s not gonna be on the power play here. It’s not doing him justice to play 12 minutes (in the NHL) when you can play 18-20 minutes (in the AHL). At his age, a lot of these guys, where they are in their career, they need to be there.”
Luca Pinelli’s rookie season in the AHL has been nothing short of impressive, as the 20-year-old fourth-round pick from 2023 has a 9-18-27 line in 34 games. An undersized but skilled wing with great hockey sense, Pinelli didn't look out of place in a three-game cameo with the Blue Jackets and is sixth among rookie scorers in the AHL. “He’s mature. He has a bit of a ‘B’ game. His ‘A’ game is his skill and thinking and hockey sense and all those things. The ‘B’ game is he’s a pain in the butt to play against.”
Mikael Pyyhtiä played 47 games with the Blue Jackets last year and five more this year, and his offensive game has reached another level this year in Cleveland. The defensively reliable 24-year-old wing has eight goals and 24 points in 25 games with the Monsters. “He’s not gonna be a liability on the ice. He’s going to do the right things, keep the puck moving, but we’re pushing him in Cleveland to be more offensive because we know he has really good skill and now is the time to show it.”
Jordan Dumais caught the attention of CBJ fans when he posted historic scoring numbers in the QMJHL in 2022-23. After working his way through injury troubles each of the past two seasons, the 2022 third-round pick is in his first full season with Cleveland and has five goals and 15 points in 29 games. “He’s a smart guy, especially for his size. He puts himself in the right position to get scoring opportunities. He’s at his best from the top of the circles down. Even though he’s not very big, he’s pretty evasive in the corners. He can make plays in small areas. You put him in front of the net with the puck on his stick, he’s gonna score.”
On the defensive side, 2021 first-round pick Corson Ceulemans leads Cleveland defensemen in scoring with a 6-10-16 line in 37 games, including goals in each of the last two contests. The offensively skilled blueliner missed the second half of last season with a shoulder injury, which was a disappointing setback considering how well he was playing a season ago. “He’s now where he was last year, and we were really happy where he was at the end of January last year right before he got hurt. He’s gotten to that point again where he’s being assertive, he’s a lot stiffer defending. We know he can play offense; we’re not even worried about that. We want him to work on his defending, and he’s taken big steps in that.”
Rookie defenseman Guillaume Richard, a fifth-round pick in 2021, is in his first full pro season after four years at Providence. A defensively sound blueliner with some size, Richard has excited Clark with his play, which includes a 3-5-8 line and plus-2 rating in 38 games. “I watched him his whole four years at Providence and everything, so I know what he can do, and I was really happy when he came in last year and that translated to the pro game. That coach in Providence, he’s pro-minded. It’s not wide open. It’s more you make smart plays, and that’s what G is. He makes smart plays. He is a really good skater, and he can skate the puck.”
Cleveland has also been boosted by the debut of Luca Marrelli, a 2024 third-round pick who racked up points a year ago in the OHL. Marrelli missed the opening three months of the season as he rehabbed from shoulder surgery and has an assist in his first two games. “The biggest thing is just the strength of the guys. It’s a little faster (than juniors), but not that much faster. But if they get a step on you, now they’re men going by you. If he’s trying to defend with his stick, they are gonna go right through it. It’s the little things. He’s going to learn every single shift more about the league. He’s trying to play catch-up in the middle of the season, but I thought he looked good (in his debut).”
Prospect Notes
- The Blue Jackets have 10 drafted players skating in college hockey this season, and if winning is paramount to development, that’s a good sign. Six prospects are playing for teams that are currently in an NCAA tournament spot per the NPI rankings used to select the 16-team field – No. 2 Michigan State (Cayden Lindstrom, Melvin Strahl), No. 3 North Dakota (Andrew Strathmann), No. 5 Western Michigan (Whitelaw), No. 6 Penn State (Smith) and No. 11 Cornell (Luke Ashton). St. Cloud State (Tanner Henricks) and Boston University (Malte Vass) are just outside the field as well.
- We caught up with Cayden Lindstrom a couple weeks ago when the Spartans played Ohio State, and he continues to work on his game after missing large chunks of each of the past two seasons with injury. The fourth overall pick in the 2024 NHL draft has a goal and four assists in 16 games but head coach Adam Nightingale has spoken positively about the steps Lindstrom has taken to get his game back after missing so much time.
- Goalie Pyotr Andreyanov was taken 20th overall by the Blue Jackets in this past summer’s draft and just turned 19 yesterday. He has split time this year between Krasnaya Armiya (MHL, Russian juniors) and Zvezda (VHL, Russian minor leagues) in the CSKA Moskva system, making 13 appearances with each squad. In the MHL, he has posted a 2.34 GAA and .926 save percentage to go with a 2.13 GAA and .918 save percentage in the VHL.
- Evan Gardner’s Saskatoon (WHL) team is moving up the standings, in part because of the goaltender posting six wins in his last eight appearances. The 2024 second-round pick has posted a .936 save percentage in his last nine contests, allowing just 16 goals over that span, and is now 17-9-2-1 on the year.
- Defenseman Tanner Henricks (2024 fourth-round pick) was off to a solid start at St. Cloud State with 1-3-4 line in his first six games but was injured in late October on a hit by his own brother, Ty, in a game vs. Western Michigan. Henricks likely would have been in consideration for Team USA’s World Juniors squad but is yet to return to the ice.
- Owen Griffin (Oshawa, OHL) continues to be a consistent producer, as coming off leading the league in playoff goals a year ago, the 2025 fifth-round pick has a 18-20-38 line in 41 games for a struggling Generals squad.
- Defenseman Nikolai Makarov is a big, defensive-minded blueliner, though the 2021 fifth-round pick has found some offense after a midseason trade from CSKA Moskva to Lada Togliatti. The 23-year-old has six assists in 14 games and is averaging 17:32 of ice time since the trade.
- Seventh-round pick Jérémy Loranger missed more than a month of his freshman season with Omaha (NCAA) with injury but has a pair of two-goal games since his return. The 2025 seventh-round pick led the BCHL in scoring a season ago and has 4-5-9 in 16 games with the Mavs.
