Blue Jackets notebook spotlights draft hope James Malatesta as the preseason countdown begins

Columbus Blue Jackets coverage from The Hockey News’ Sunday recap turned the focus to the team’s organizational pipeline, with one of the featured items tied directly to a specific prospect. The recap’s opening card included a “67 Days Until Opening Night” theme and pointed to James Malatesta, noting that he was selected 133rd overall by the Blue Jackets in the 2021 NHL Draft.

Malatesta’s inclusion in a late-summer team recap is notable because it reinforces how the Blue Jackets’ offseason narrative is often built around development timelines rather than immediate roster certainty. A third-round-plus draft slot typically implies a longer runway, and the league-wide expectation for players taken in that range is to earn bigger roles through incremental progress at their next level.

The Sunday recap also referenced Columbus in the context of how teams can measure “contract efficiency.” The accompanying image caption in the Yahoo Sports presentation indicated that the Blue Jackets ranked surprisingly high in NHL contract efficiency rankings, a framing that suggests observers are looking at how Columbus allocates cap resources relative to expected on-ice contributions. While the recap format is a weekly collection of stories, that theme matters because it points to a front office emphasis on value creation, not simply headline splash.

Taken together, the Malatesta note and the efficiency-ranking reference fit a common NHL offseason storyline: organizations try to balance present roster construction with the need to keep their younger talent pool moving. For a team like Columbus, that often means prospects are monitored closely even when they are not yet regulars in NHL lineups, because their eventual NHL emergence can influence everything from depth-forward needs to the internal competition for special teams roles.

It is also worth keeping expectations grounded. A draft citation alone does not guarantee NHL readiness, and efficiency rankings are a perspective rather than a result on their own. The “67 Days Until Opening Night” countdown language tells you the recap is positioned as a lead-in to the season, but it does not, by itself, confirm roster spot availability for any single player.

What to watch next for Columbus is whether Malatesta’s development story stays in the spotlight as training camp approaches, and whether the team’s contract-efficiency framing translates into clearer on-ice roles for both veterans and younger skaters. As the preseason gets closer, the organization’s internal depth chart pressure points usually become more legible, and prospects highlighted in summer recaps can either fade from view or reappear with concrete performance updates.