Blue Jackets Sunday Gathering: A wild night for a prospect’s debut

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets:

Item No. 1: A wild night

A player’s first call-up to the NHL is a massive moment — not just for the player but for their surrounding family. It’s one part nerves, two parts excitement and, in some cases, a major drama behind the scenes. Consider the story earlier this week when Luca Del Bel Belluz, a second-round pick (No. 44) of the Blue Jackets in the 2022 draft, was called up for his NHL debut.

Angelo Del Bel Belluz was in a real estate development meeting on Tuesday when his cell phone buzzed. If it wasn’t Luca calling, he might not have stepped outside to take it.

“Luca’s out of the breath on the other end,” Angelo said. “He said, ‘Dad, I just got called up. You have to get down here. Leave now!’”

It was 12:58 p.m. and the Blue Jackets had just recalled Luca from AHL Cleveland to make his NHL debut in the season finale vs. Carolina. The recall came late because Blue Jackets forward Dmitry Voronkov had fallen sick during the day.

Angelo’s first call was to his wife, Susy, who works for WestJet, the second-largest airline based in Canada. But she had bad news: The last direct flight of the day from Toronto to Columbus was wheels up in two minutes. The non-direct flights wouldn’t arrive in Columbus until after 9 p.m., two hours after faceoff.

Columbus is about a seven-hour drive from Columbus in perfect traffic, but there’s never perfect traffic in Toronto, much less at the U.S.-Canada border. Angelo’s meeting was held in King City, Ontario, in the northern suburbs of Toronto.

This was not ideal, any of it.

“I called my wife and told her to get ready and to call an Uber for my daughter (Marinella) to get her home from school early,” Angelo said. “I raced home. We left the house at about 1:45. and I looked at my (GPS app) and it said we’d arrive in Columbus at 8:20.

“I said, ‘Oh, no. We’re going to miss everything.’ And then I thought for a second and said, ‘Susy, buckle up. We’re going 180 (kilometers per hour, or about 120 miles per hour) all the way.’”

A few days later, Angelo still marveled at how the world appeared to be aligning for them. They made it to the border — typically a one-hour, 40-minute trip — in only 55 minutes. And when they arrived at the customs kiosk, another shocker.

“Not one car is ahead of us in line,” Angelo said. “I was through in about 10 seconds. Couldn’t believe it. I think somebody was looking over us. We got through New York and all the way through Ohio and we didn’t see a single state trooper. Not one.”

Around 6:30 p.m., just as the Blue Jackets were heading out for warmups, Blue Jackets team relations specialist Aaron Johnson called Angelo’s cellphone for an update.

When told they were scheduled to arrive at Nationwide Arena around 7:25, Johnson told him to pull into the player’s entrance by the loading dock and leave his car running, that a club staffer would park it and hold his keys. At this point, every second mattered.

The three Del Bel Belluzes arrived ahead of schedule, and Johnson was waiting for them at the door. The game was underway.

“We’re running into the arena, and Marinella gets a text from one of her friends,” Del Bel Belluz said. “And then we hear this loud boom, that cannon they fire off (when the Blue Jackets score).

“That’s when Marinella relays the text message … ‘Daddy, Luca just scored.’ I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ And Aaron Johnson looks at his phone and says, ‘Ang, he just scored.’

“I was so happy, but I missed it. We missed it. Can you believe it? I get to my seat and they’re announcing his name, but we missed it.”

Say it with us LUCA DEL BEL BELLUZ!!!! 🗣🗣🗣

#65 WITH HIS 1ST NHL GOAL, IN HIS 1ST NHL GAME, ON HIS 1ST SHOT 🤯@Nationwide | #CBJ pic.twitter.com/0fyZdCbcuA

— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) April 16, 2024

Del Bel Belluz became the 223rd NHL player to score on his first NHL shot on goal. He scored only 3:37 into the game, just seconds after he emerged from the penalty box — he was serving a bench minor for too many men — off a wrister from the left circle.

The Blue Jackets went on to win 6-3, and Del Bel Belluz was named the game’s second star. That’s a pretty solid NHL debut.

“I got over 500 text messages,” Angelo said. “I heard from people I haven’t spoken with in over 40 years. It’s incredible.”

The Blue Jackets sent Del Bel Belluz and other players to AHL Cleveland after the game, but the players were allowed to spend the evening in Columbus and report to Cleveland the following morning. Del Bel Belluz and other players went out to celebrate.

Angelo, Susy and Marinella — still running on adrenaline — drove to Cleveland after the game. That’s a lot of driving in one day.

“When we got to Cleveland, I stayed up and watched the (Blue Jackets) game again, right from the start,” Angelo said. “I didn’t get to bed until 5 a.m.

“Absolutely incredible memory. I still can’t believe it all happened. We’re so happy for Luca. We’re so thankful for the Cleveland coaching staff, for the work they’ve done with Luca this season. It’s just been a great experience, his first year pro.”

Item No. 2: Improvement, but … 

We predicted boldly (perhaps recklessly) in this space last fall that the Blue Jackets, following the acquisition of veteran defensemen Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson, would allow 100 fewer goals this season than they did during the franchise-record-setting 2022-23 season.

That wasn’t quite the case. The Blue Jackets allowed only 31 fewer goals this season vs. last, but once again finished as the NHL’s second-worst defensive club with 298 goals against, or 3.63 per game.

In fact, many of the Blue Jackets’ numbers in 2023-24 vs. 2022-23 were quite similar. The Jackets won only two more games and accumulated only seven more points, moving from 31st (second worst) in the standings to 29th (fourth worst).

On the power play, they actually got worse this season, which didn’t seem possible.

But if you’re looking for signs of life, some significant statistical proof that the Blue Jackets were improved from that dreadful 2022-23 season, and perhaps an indication that the Jackets are headed in the right direction, we’ll point you toward their goal differential.

In 2022-23, the Jackets were outscored by 116 goals, more than a goal per game. That was the worst mark in franchise history and the second worst in the league.

This season, the Jackets were still heavy on the negative at minus-64. But that’s a 52-goal improvement from one year ago, which is not a small gain.

Item No. 3: Snacks

• AHL Cleveland has long clinched a playoff spot, but the Monsters can win their first division title in franchise history with a win today over Toronto. Two points vs. the Marlies would allow the Monsters to jump first-place Syracuse on the last day of the AHL’s regular season. The Blue Jackets gutted the AHL roster to fill out their lineup over the last month of the season but returned forwards Trey Fix-Wolansky, James Malatesta, Mikael Pyyhtia and Del Bel Belluz; defensemen Nick Blankenburg and David Jiricek; and goaltender Jet Greaves on Wednesday. The Monsters have won the first two games of a back-to-back-to-back to end the regular season. Puck drop is at 4 p.m. today.

• Greaves has afforded himself well at both levels of the organization for a second straight season. He had a .908 save percentage in nine games with the Blue Jackets, a percentage that’s decidedly higher than the team’s .894 save percentage. With AHL Cleveland, he’s set a single-season franchise record with 29 wins this season (Anton Forsberg held the previous mark with 27 in 2016-17). With a win today — yes, he’s expected to make his third start in three days — he can set the franchise record for wins with No. 61. He’s currently tied with Calvin Pickard (60).

• Don’t miss this story, which took place during a Monsters game vs. Laval last weekend. Glad Nasir is doing well.

• The Monsters have nine healthy defensemen heading into the playoffs, allowing coach Trent Vogelhuber to rotate his three pairs in the final days of the season. There will be intense competition to stay in the lineup during the playoffs, especially if another player is added. We keep hearing that the Blue Jackets and Luca Fantilli, the brother of Columbus rookie Adam Fantilli, have had contract discussions that would have Luca turning pro after two seasons at the University of Michigan. Luca has attended development camps with Pittsburgh and the New York Rangers over the last two summers.

• Before Blue Jackets winger Kent Johnson returned home to Vancouver, B.C. for the offseason, he had a check-up on Thursday with club doctors on his surgically repaired shoulder, which kept him out of the lineup since Feb. 28. “Appointment was great,” Johnson said in a text exchange with The Athletic. “Shoulder is healing great!” Johnson has been able to maintain his off-ice workouts on his legs the whole time but was cleared Thursday to begin some limited upper-body lifting. He expects to be cleared well before the start of training camp in the fall.

• Zach Werenski won’t get many (if any) votes for the Norris Trophy, given annually to the NHL’s top defenseman. He had a career-high and franchise-record-tying 57-point season (11-46-57), but across the league finished 12th among blueliners in scoring. Still, consider this: Werenski played heavy minutes (24:27 per game) mostly against the opponents’ top players and finished with an even rating on a club that allowed 64 more goals than it scored. That’s impressive.

• Blue Jackets minor-league winger Carson Meyer, from Powell, Ohio, will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Meyer falls under the “Group 6” category of free agents, meaning he’s 25 years or older (he turns 27 this summer) and has not played 80 or more NHL games (he’s played 41 after dressing in 14 games this season). Meyer has become an important player with AHL Cleveland but will miss at least the first two rounds of the postseason after suffering an injury late in the season with Columbus.

• Defenseman Denton Mateychuk is putting quite the stamp on his Western Hockey League career. Mateychuk and Moose Jaw are through to the third round of the WHL playoffs, and the Warriors captain is leading the league in postseason scoring. He has 5-14-19 and a plus-12 rating in nine games. Mateychuk could join AHL Cleveland if Moose Jaw’s season ends while the AHL playoffs are still underway.

• Del Bel Belluz became the eighth Blue Jackets player to score in his NHL debut, joining David Vyborny (2000-01), Rick Nash (2002-03), Jakub Voracek (2008-09), Nikita Filatov (2008-09), Pierre-Luc Dubois (2017-18), Trey Fix-Wolansky (2021-22) and Marcus Bjork (2022-23). None of them scored earlier in their debut than Del Bel Belluz (3:37), however. Previously, Voracek held the mark when he scored 15:43 into his debut on Oct. 10, 2008, in Dallas.

• Three Blue Jackets players prior to Del Bel Belluz have scored on their first NHL shots: Vyborny, Voracek and Filatov.

• Little-known fact: Former Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson, now the commissioner of the AHL, scored on his first four shots in the NHL while playing with the New York Islanders in 1984-85.

• Six players made their NHL debuts for the Blue Jackets this season: Del Bel Belluz, Gavin Brindley, Cameron Butler, Fantilli, Malatesta and Dmitry Voronkov. Last season, the Blue Jackets matched a franchise record (2000-01) with 10 players making their NHL debuts. Here’s one way to measure the massive rebuild this franchise started three seasons ago: Since the start of the 2021-22 season, 25 players have made their NHL debuts for Columbus.

• One of the text messages Del Bel Belluz received in the wake of his NHL debut was from former Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen, who was fired in February. “I always knew you’d make it. Great first impression. Congratulations Luca.”

(Photo of Luca Del Bel Belluz: Russell LaBounty / USA Today)