5 Prospects & Depth Players Who Deserve NHL Opportunities

The Blue Jackets have an abundance of strong depth players and high end prospects, but most of them are being held back by the team's logjams

The Columbus Blue Jackets have quite a few players who deserve a much bigger opportunity than they’re currently getting, It’s strange to say that about a team that is currently sitting 29th in the NHL’s league standings, but depth certainly isn’t their issue. They have a phenomenal amount of NHL-caliber talent, the issue is not much of it is top-tier talent.

They have a lot of players who can be effective pieces to a contending team’s bottom-six forward group, or as bottom-pairing defensemen. Some of these players being held back are prospects, who either never got a good chance or have been mishandled. Others are fringe players who have bounced between the Blue Jackets and the American Hockey League’s Cleveland Monsters for years, despite seemingly doing everything they needed to prove themselves. Let’s dive into it.

Trey Fix-Wolansky

Coming in at number five, we have a player who it feels like has been part of the Blue Jackets organization for a decade or longer. Trey Fix-Wolansky hasn’t been in the organization for that long, he was drafted in the seventh round of the 2018 draft and has since become a mainstay of the Monsters. He represented Cleveland at this season’s AHL All-Star Challenge in San Jose, California alongside two other players on this list and leads the team in scoring this season. 

Fix-Wolansky typically gets a few appearances in the NHL, but never a long run to find a rhythm. His career high in games played at the NHL level is only nine during the 2022-23 season, and he scored one goal which was his only point of the season. Down in the AHL though, he was on a tear. The Edmonton native notched a career-high 71 points in 61 games, 29 of which were goals. His physicality also tends to get toned down a bit when he’s with the Blue Jackets, In his 16 appearances on NHL ice, he has zero penalty minutes compared to his much more interesting 188 in 213 career AHL games. It seems like his game changes at the NHL level, rather than playing his own game, he plays the role the team needs which hasn’t allowed him to shine on the biggest stage.