Columbus Blue Jackets: Top 8 prospects worth getting excited about

2. Liam Foudy

Despite being taken with the 18th overall pick at the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, Liam Foudy’s numbers with the London Knights in the OHL that season didn’t look overly impressive. In 65 games that year, he put up 24 goals and 40 points. Good totals, but nothing that appeared to suggest he was a First Round talent.

Since then, however, he has shown why he was taken at the spot he was. The following season, which was his third in the OHL, Foudy scored 36 goals and added 32 assists in 62 games.

The 2019-20 season saw Foudy return to junior hockey for one final year, and he certainly made the most of it. Despite playing in only 45 games, he was able to score 28 goals and 68 points. He also cracked the Team Canada roster for the 2020 World Juniors, where his goal scoring abilities continued as he put three pucks in the back of the net during the tournament and also added an assist.

Columbus Blue Jackets fans were able to watch him play this past season as well, as Foudy appeared in two regular season games with Columbus, chipping in with an assist, as well as 10 games they played in the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs where he had a goal and an assist. He has a great shot to play the entire 2020-21 season in the NHL.

1. Kirill Marchenko

At this point and time, the Columbus Blue Jackets look like they may have found themselves a Second Round steal in Kirill Marchenko, who they took with the 49th overall pick at the 2018 NHL Entry Draft.

The now 20-year-old Russian forward had an impressive 2019-20 rookie campaign in the KHL for St. Petersburg SKA, scoring seven goals and 16 points in 31 contests. He was able to elevate his play even more in the postseason, where he had five points in four games.

This season, Marchenko’s numbers with St. Petersburg have gotten even better. In 29 games on the season, he has put up 11 goals and nine assists. For comparisons sake on just how good this is,  the Vancouver Canucks’ top prospect Vasili Podkolzin, who was selected 10th overall at the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, has just six points in 24 games for the same team.

Marchenko was also able to play for Team Russia at the past two World Junior Tournaments. While his first year saw him put up just one goal in seven games, he was much better a year later scoring two goals and adding four assists. He has a great shot at becoming a high scoring NHL forward in the future for the Columbus Blue Jackets.