Fans are starting to notice that the first season of Conor Garland’s six-year, $36 million contract hasn’t gotten off to the best start for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Garland’s contract was signed as an extension with the Vancouver Canucks in the 2025 offseason, but after the 2025-26 season became the disaster that it was — including a down year from Garland — the organization successfully cut bait, dealing Garland and his pending six-year extension to Columbus ahead of the 2026 trade deadline. The Canucks received a 2026 third-round pick and a 2028 second-round pick in return for Garland, and used the third-round pick to select goaltender Dmitri Ivchenko this past June.

And so far, the Canucks have got to feel a bit better than the Blue Jackets do about the trade.

After tallying five goals and two assists through the 21 games he played for the Blue Jackets following the trade last season, Garland has been held pointless through eight games with Columbus to open the 2026-27 season.

But what’s behind those struggles for Garland? To help answer that question, we caught up with Mark Scheig of The Hockey Writers. Scheig covers the Blue Jackets on a daily basis and is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

“There are moments where you can see Garland’s speed and ability to disrupt, but it’s been far too infrequent,” said Scheig. “His role changes game-by-game and sometimes period-by-period. I think that inconsistency plays a role in this. One moment, he’s in the top-six and on the power play. The next, he’s playing on the fourth line. You can tell the team is still learning about each other. That results in mistakes and inconsistency. There’s still a player there, but until the team finds his role, I think we’ll see more of the same.”

The Blue Jackets have gotten off to a 3-5 start to begin their season, and currently sit dead last in the Metropolitan Division. Rick Bowness, who blasted his team’s work ethic at his end-of-season media availability last season, promised a culture change if he were to return as head coach, is back behind the bench this season. So far, his message seems to have fallen on deaf ears, as he didn’t take long to rip his team in the media again this season. According to Scheig, though, Bowness seems to have toned down that approach to getting his message across recently.

“The Blue Jackets have actually been decent in first periods and at 5-on-5. But special teams have killed them,” noted Scheig. “They are last in the NHL on the power play and have a 70% penalty kill. Couple those issues with their second-period collapses and you start to get a picture of their season. The story to watch is Bowness’ message. He recently said after the Maple Leafs game that culture is not the problem which is a toned-down message from his earlier comments. Sense I get is players receive the same messaging in the room before Bowness says the same thing to the media. They know they have to be better. But calling them out only goes so far. Their next few games will tell us if the message is truly being received.”

As for Garland, he’s struggled to find a consistent spot after mainly being a top-six player down the stretch of last season.

“Garland was mostly a top-six player last season,” added Scheig. “You noticed him because he irritated the opposition. Now, we’re seeing constant switching of roles. Bowness recently called Garland ‘a Swiss Army knife.’ Bowness likes him as a player, but they haven’t been able to unlock his game to this point. The question to consider is whether the Blue Jackets have the kind of roster that can truly get the most out of him. So far, the answer is no.”

The Blue Jackets will hope to unlock the best version of Garland in a hurry, as the 30-year-old winger’s six-year contract carries a full no-move clause for the first three years before switching to a 15-team no-trade list in the 2029-30 season.

Make no mistake about it — Garland is a solid player who has shown a rare ability to drive play as a winger in the past. What we’re seeing right now in Columbus sounds a lot like the Garland we saw prior to Rick Tocchet’s arrival in Vancouver, when Garland saw his role elevated and became a more impactful player for the Canucks.

But for now, it hasn’t been a good start to his Blue Jackets tenure. The Blue Jackets visit Vancouver on January 16th, so we’ll see how much the story has changed by the time Garland returns to the place he called home for five seasons.