2017-18 First 100-Point Season

Lore & Background

By the 2017-18 season, the Blue Jackets had shed the last ghosts of the Nicklas Fasts era. The franchise, which had opened in 2000 with the electric energy of a brand-new NHL expansion team, had spent the mid-2010s in a strange limbo—good enough to be competitive, never quite good enough to be dangerous. The 2011-12 and 2013-14 playoff runs had shown flashes, but the years between felt like watching a car stall at the top of every hill. Then the rebuild clicked. The 2017 draft and the steady accumulation of young, two-way talent—Boone Jenner settling into his true center role, Seth Jones emerging as a generational offensive defenseman, Matt Frattin and Oliver Bjorkstrand becoming the kind of wingers who make opposing defensemen flinch—created a roster that finally had continuity.

The 2017-18 season was defined by pace and possession. This was not a team that relied on a single superstar to carry the load; it was a system. Cam Atkinson, in his prime, brought the physicality and the goal-scoring. Frattin and Bjorkstrand brought the speed and the creativity. On the back end, Seth Jones was already the best offensive defenseman in the league, and the pairing with a steady, physical partner gave the team a defensive identity that had been missing for years. The result was a team that scored at a rate the franchise had never before sustained, and that crossed the 100-point line for the first time in its 18-year existence.

For Columbus fans, the significance went beyond the standings. The 100-point mark was the psychological barrier that separated 'good' from 'elite' in the NHL. Crossing it meant the Blue Jackets were no longer a team that had a good year; they were a team that had a good standard. It set the expectation for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons that followed, when the club would push into the 100-point range as a baseline rather than a breakthrough. The 2017-18 season was the proof of concept, the season that told everyone in the building—players, coaches, front office, fans—that the ceiling had been raised permanently.

In Their Own Story

The arena hummed before the puck dropped. It was a Thursday night in late January, and Nationwide Arena had that particular quality it only gets when a team is playing with something to prove: the crowd is loud but controlled, a low roar that builds with every shift. The Blue Jackets' warmup was different that night. You could see it in the way Frattin and Bjorkstrand ran their lines, the way Seth Jones skated the blue line with that unhurried, predatory glide. Atkinson was bouncing the puck off his stick, grinning at someone in the stands.

The first period was a war of attrition. The opposing team played a tight, physical game, trying to slow the tempo, to make this a 2-1 hockey game. But the Jackets' system didn't care about tempo. They wanted speed. They wanted the rush. And when Bjorkstrand got the puck on the wing and made that one-on-one move, the arena erupted in a sound that felt structural, like the building itself was vibrating.

By the third period, the score was 4-2, and the crowd was on its feet for every shift. The 100-point milestone was still weeks away, but you could feel it in the air, in the way the players celebrated a routine corner hit, in the way the announcer's voice cracked on a Frattin goal. This was no longer a team reaching. This was a team arriving. And for the first time in the franchise's history, the standard was no longer 'can we make the playoffs?' It was 'how high can we go?'

Reader's Guide

The 2017-18 season stands as the Columbus Blue Jackets' first campaign to finish with 100 or more points in the NHL standings, a milestone that had eluded the franchise since its 2000 inception.

Before this season, the Jackets' best finishes had hovered in the 80s and low 90s. The 2011-12 and 2013-14 playoff runs were built on 86-point seasons, and the mid-2010s saw the team stall in the 70s and 80s as the post-Fast roster churned. The 100-point threshold, in NHL parlance, is the line between a competitive team and an elite one—the point at which a club is no longer competing for a wild-card spot but is genuinely a contender.

The 2017-18 roster that broke through was built on a young core: Boone Jenner at center, Seth Jones as the offensive defenseman, and a top-six that included Cam Atkinson, Matt Frattin, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Jared McCann. The system emphasized speed, possession, and two-way play, and the result was a level of sustained offensive production the franchise had never before achieved.

The significance extends beyond the single season. Crossing 100 points reset the franchise's expectations. The 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons followed with 100-point-or-better finishes, confirming that 2017-18 was not a fluke but the new floor. For a team that had spent its first decade and a half defined by inconsistency, the 100-point mark became the identity: this was now a team that scored at an elite rate, every year, as a matter of course.

In the broader context of NHL history, 100-point seasons are common for established franchises but remain a meaningful benchmark for any team. For the Blue Jackets, it was the season the rebuild stopped being a narrative and became a standard.

Did You Know?

• Seth Jones, who was just 23 during the 2017-18 season, was already widely regarded as the best offensive defenseman in the NHL and would go on to become one of the most productive two-way defenders in the league's histor
• The 2017-18 season was part of a broader 'Jackets 2.0' rebuild that had been in motion since the departure of Nicklas Fasts, and it set the stage for the franchise's first sustained stretch of 100-plus-point seasons in t
• Matt Frattin and Oliver Bjorkstrand formed a wing pairing that became one of the most electric and fast-moving in the NHL during this era, known for their speed, stick skills, and ability to generate scoring chances in t
• Nationwide Arena, the Blue Jackets' home since the franchise's 2000 inception, has hosted every one of the team's seasons, making the 2017-18 100-point milestone a home-grown achievement in every sense.