Will Rick Bowness come back to coach the Columbus Blue Jackets for another season?
Elliotte Friedman joined Scott Laughlin and Gord Stellick on Sirius XM NHL Network Morning Skate on Wednesday. There, he was asked about the status of an extension for Rick Bowness with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Scott Laughlin: “Friedge, Columbus wins again last night, and they’re now second in the Metropolitan Division. We’ve talked about the Rick Bowness bump. He’s gone from being on the panel with the likes of Elliotte Friedman to back behind the bench, and he has had a great run of success. I think, to the future now of the Jackets, and they’ve got some unrestricted free agents coming up.
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We know about Charlie Coyle and Mason Marchment and the captain, Boone Jenner and that sort of thing, guys that they’ll be chasing coming up in the summer. I guess what I’m getting at, Friedge, just the sense that there’s an extension coming for Rick Bowness.
I mean at this point, what more does he need to do, other than going out there and solidifying a playoff spot? And I don’t know, maybe that’s the answer. Are you surprised that he’s not extended yet in Columbus?”
Elliotte Friedman: “Well, I went up to Don Waddell at the end of the GM meetings. They said to him, just what’s the schedule here? And he said, we’ve agreed we’ll talk about it at the end of the season. And he kind of laughed, and he said, the only two people who aren’t worried about this is us, and so I take them at their word, right? They’ll sort this out at the end of the year.
But one thing I do agree with Scotty is that I think some of the players there who are UFAs, they kind of want to know, is Rick Bowness going to stay next season? Now, I’ve got to think this, if he was willing to come out of, I don’t know what do you call it, semi-retirement, to do this job, and he’s having the kind of success he’s having, and one thing I’ve learned working with Rick Bowness is he loves to coach. Like loves it. Then I don’t see why it would be so hard to get an extension done, as long as nobody’s unrealistic.
So that’s the way I kind of look at it. But Waddell said they would talk about it at the end of the season. The thing too about Waddell is he’s not afraid to let negotiations wait. They got (Ivan) Provorov done right before free agency last year.”
NHLRumors.com Note: Rick Bowness was hired on January 12th, 2026, and the Columbus Blue Jackets have a record 19-3-4. GM Don Waddell felt his team was better than the 19-19-7 record they had before Bowness was hired. While the Blue Jackets traded for Marchment and then Conor Garland at the deadline, Columbus felt they were always a playoff team.
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They will have tough decisions to make about some of their players, but they traded for Coyle, Miles Wood, and others to make themselves tougher to play against. Waddell and Bowness know his plans. It was a one-year deal, and then we’ll see what’s going on. That could impact some of their UFAs. So let’s see how this plays out as the Jackets march toward the playoffs.
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