Blue Jackets fire GM Kekalainen after 11 seasons

The Columbus Blue Jackets fired general manager Jarmo Kekalainen, the team announced Thursday.

President of hockey operations and alternate governor John Davidson, along with the club's hockey operations management team, will assume the general manager duties in the interim.

"This is one of the hardest days I have had in my career as Jarmo is a friend, someone I have a great deal of respect for, and someone who has done a lot of good things during his time here," Davidson said. "While the future of our club is bright, our performance has not been good enough, and it is time for a fresh perspective as we move forward."

Davidson added the organization will cast a wide net in searching for Kekalainen's replacement.

"We will look outside of the box, we'll look everywhere," Davidson said. "That's what we have to do, and that's why we're in no rush to do this. We're gonna look for energy, we're gonna look for smarts, we're gonna look for a player evaluator, a person that understands analytics. Everything from A to Z."

Davidson was part of the Blue Jackets management group that named the Finnish Kekalainen the first European GM in NHL history in February 2013. Kekalainen held the position for parts of 11 seasons, overseeing the best era in the franchise's history, which included four straight postseason trips from 2017-20.

Kekalainen is responsible for five of the club's six playoff berths in the team's 23 NHL seasons.

The highlight of Kekalainen's tenure - and the organization as a whole - came in 2019 when the underdog Blue Jackets upset the 62-win Tampa Bay Lightning with a four-game sweep in Round 1 of the postseason. It still marks the only best-of-seven playoff series win in franchise history.

Kekalainen went all-in at the trade deadline that year. He held on to pending unrestricted free agents Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky and made splashes for Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel.

But the past few seasons haven't been kind to Kekalainen, as Columbus sits in last place in the Eastern Conference for the second straight season. Johnny Gaudreau has yet to live up to the hype of the franchise-record $68.25-million contract he signed as a free agent in 2022. This past offseason's additions of Damon Severson and Ivan Provorov also haven't fixed the club's issues on defense.

However, Kekalainen has set the team up nicely for the long haul through a retool over the last few years. Led by 2023 No. 3 pick Adam Fantilli, the Blue Jackets are one of the youngest squads in the NHL.

Davidson said that's part of why he expects plenty of interest in the vacant position.

"I think we'll get a lot of calls. I really do," he said. "In fact, I've already had a couple."