Jarmo Kekalainen’s firing was a long time coming for the Blue Jackets

The Columbus Blue Jackets fired general manager Jarmo Kekalainen on Thursday, marking the end of a relationship that’s lasted since the 2012-13 season. President of Hockey Operations John Davidson will take over as general manager for the remainder of the 2023-24 season.

“This is one of the hardest days I have had in my career as Jarmo is a friend, someone I have a great deal of respect for and someone who has done a lot of good things during his time here,” Davidson said. “While the future of our club is bright, our performance has not been good enough and it is time for a fresh perspective as we move forward.”

The highlight of Kekalainen’s tenure with the Blue Jackets was the club sweeping the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. They defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the qualifying round of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic, but have missed the post-season for three consecutive seasons. 

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discuss the Blue Jackets’ decision to move on from Kekalainen and what this means going forward for a Columbus squad that’s struggling.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It’s safe to say the writing was on the wall for quite some time, basically since the Mike Babcock debacle before the season even started, and then combine that with the really poor start. Eleven years at the helm and only one playoff series victory in that time, it was time for Jarmo.

Colby Cohen: This has been 11 years of Kekalainen and this team has done very little in that time, basically since John Tortorella left, it’s seemingly gone off a cliff. You have to wonder, after looking at what Tortorella is doing with the Philadelphia Flyers right now, maybe he was the steadying presence? Every decision that they’ve made in the last few years has gone the wrong way.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…