Rick Bowness Returns as Blue Jackets’ Head Coach: “I Want to Win Here” – The Hockey Writers – Columbus Blue Jackets

The Columbus Blue Jackets were fresh off their day of exit interviews. The reality of how the end of their season was still fresh in everyone’s minds. To a man, most everyone within the organization believes they should be getting ready for playoff hockey.

Instead, for the sixth consecutive year, the Blue Jackets will get ready for yet another long offseason. Unlike last offseason, this one has much more happening on the Don Waddell to do list.

Perhaps at the top of that list was an important one. Who was going to be the head coach of the Blue Jackets in 2026-27 and beyond? Waddell and head coach Rick Bowness both agreed that they’d talk after the season about the future.

That talk took place on Wednesday on the morning of exit interviews. On Thursday afternoon, the news became official. Bowness and the Blue Jackets agreed to a one-year extension to stay on as head coach.

What Led to the Extension

Both Waddell and Bowness held a press conference on Thursday. It was abundantly clear that everyone involved was extremely disappointed at the way things ended in 2025-26. But at the same time, it was clear that the team loved overall what Bowness brought to the table.

Even despite the postgame tirade on Tuesday night, while players didn’t agree with the assertion they don’t care, they mostly acknowledged needing to learn how to win. That’s where they hope Bowness will help them take the next step.

“Obviously, we were hoping we weren’t sitting here this early,” Waddell said. “But things happened and I’m very happy to announce though that we’ve extended Rick’s contract through next season. If you look at the body of work that happened here over the last 37 games, I’m very pleased with Rick’s work. I’ve said all along that the strengths of this organization from a coaching standpoint has been the communication he’s had with the players and getting the players ready to play on a regular basis.”

“It’s always interesting when you do make changes how players are going to respond,” Waddell continued. “Even through all the exit meetings that have happened so far, every player to a man said they love playing for Rick. They respect Rick and they’re all hoping he’d come back for another year. So we’re very pleased to announce that signing today.”

For Bowness, he didn’t have to come back. But he saw enough within his time with the Blue Jackets to decide to come back for at least one more season. It appears there is some unfinished business given how things ended.

“There’s a pretty good team here and there is,” Bowness said. “There’s some really good pieces here. I heard a lot of great things about the character of the players and that’s all been very true. They’ve been wonderful to work with. I really enjoy it. It’s, as I’ve always said, that’s the part of the coaching I miss the most was the daily activity and working with the players. But coming in, I knew this is a pretty good team with a lot of good pieces. We had some success early and that made it a lot of fun. But it just scratched the itch a little bit more.”

“I’m very excited and I want to be thankful to Don and the management and the ownership to give me this opportunity because I am anxious to come back and finish the job that I came here to do and that’s to get the Columbus Blue Jackets in the playoffs.”

But above all else, Bowness came back because of one simple reason. It’s the same reason everyone says they’re in it for.

“And I wouldn’t come back if I didn’t think we could get this team in the playoffs. I want to win.”

Had the Blue Jackets needed to hire another coach, it would have marked another change in such a short period of time. It was clear the team made bringing Bowness back a top priority.

With the Blue Jackets having to make decisions on several free agents, Waddell felt it was very important to get this done as soon as possible.

“If you’re a UFA, you always want to know who the coach is going to be. There’s no doubt about it,” Waddell said. “To be able to make this decision quickly and then have Rick agree, a hundred percent puts us in a better place for our players because now they’re not asking who’s going to be the coach. If I had to go hire a coach, it would be months. As we all know, it doesn’t happen overnight. So being able to get Rick to come back this next year certainly helps us as we move forward with all our players but more importantly our UFA’s.”

Then with Bowness returning, he will have a full offseason to plan and make any necessary changes. While Bowness gave a lot of credit to his assistant coaches, he didn’t definitively say any of them would be back.

“That’ll be done. I will have meetings with that,” Bowness said.

Then the head coach discussed that there will be changes. He pointed to one thing right off the bat that has to be better next season.

“We’ll certainly make some changes,” Bowness said. “Listen, your special teams have to get a lot better. They can’t be where they are. We have to improve those and we can. We’ll spend a lot of time in training camp on those. I think it also goes back to when we were winning playing following that process. They all felt good. Then you have a couple of games where the puck doesn’t go in. You start going do we need to change anything? Well, from a coaching perspective, when you’re generating offense and it’s not going, you don’t have to change a whole lot, right?”

“Again, it goes back to if they started to think about the playoffs as opposed to the process, you lose that little bit of focus. And that’s, at that time of year and when it gets harder, that’s all it takes. There’s improvements we have to make. There’s improvements we will make.”

Blue Jackets Players Happy

The players we spoke to all said that wanted Bowness to return. They got their wish. Postgame Tuesday, Jet Greaves said he wanted Bowness back and so did his teammates.

On Thursday morning, both Mathieu Olivier and Damon Severson said they wanted Bowness back. Severson even went as far as saying Bowness was the best coach he’s ever had.

The obvious question that came from the aftermath of Bowness’ postgame Tuesday was how would the players handle it. They disagreed with the not caring part but understood it was in the heat of the moment and that there were things they needed to learn. But fact that the players all wanted him back says volumes about what they thought of the job he did behind the bench.

Waddell joked on Thursday that the price tag for Charlie Coyle is going up as he talked about how great his season was. But having Bowness back will give the Blue Jackets a chance to bring some of their UFA’s back. Coyle told the media on Wednesday “I love working with Rick. It would definitely be a big positive if he was here.”

With Bowness adding he would like Coyle and Mason Marchment back, the feelings appear to be mutual that there is respect on both sides.

Bowness is back for at least one more season. He wants to win. He sees the potential in these Blue Jackets being able to win. The players all loved playing for him. It was an important first step for Waddell to complete as they start kicking into high gear during this offseason.

Bowness and the players all feel like they have some unfinished business to settle next season.