While the Washington Capitals‘ locker room wasn’t exactly electric and full of life after their season-ending victory on Wednesday, it definitely wasn’t the warzone that the Columbus Blue Jackets‘ locker room sounds like it must have been.
After his team dropped a 2-1 decision to the Capitals, their ninth loss in their last 11 games, Columbus head coach Rick Bowness lit into his team during his postgame press conference. The team was second in the Metropolitan Division on March 25, but their late-season collapse kept them out of the playoffs for a sixth straight year.
“You know what? All you got to do is just look at the stat sheet,” Bowness said. “Three hits, 23 giveaways. I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture. These guys, they don’t care. Losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them. How can you go out and play like that? Should have done this about a month ago.
“But this is why we are where we are. This is why we’re out of the playoffs. That kind of effort. You have to hate losing. I don’t care if it’s a meaningless game. I don’t care. Show up and compete. Three hits. 23 giveaways. What else do you want to know?”
Bowness replaced Dean Evason as head coach on January 12, with the Blue Jackets at 19-19-7, last in the Eastern Conference. The 71-year-old bench boss came out of retirement for the job and led them to the second-best record in the NHL, 19-3-4, from January 12 to March 25.
When asked what changed with the club that led them to falter so dramatically, Bowness went on another emotional tirade.
“Because it got tough,” Bowness said. “Because it got hard. Like we talked about after the Olympic break. It’s going to get harder. So everything is good as long as it’s going their way. And now it gets tough, we don’t want to battle back. And that’s what’s happened over the last little week, a couple weeks. That’s all that’s happened.
“We’re going to change that if I’m back. I don’t know if I’m back. Don (general manager Don Waddell) and I will talk. We’ll get to that. But man, oh man, some of those guys are so lucky the season’s over, and there’s no practice tomorrow, and there’s no more games.”
Overall, the Blue Jackets didn’t have a particularly bad game against the Capitals, controlling the majority of five-on-five shot attempts (43-35) and expected goals (2.63-1.86). Still, the loss seems to have caused an already boiling pot to spill over the edge.
The Blue Jackets have made the playoffs just six times in their 26 years of existence. Contributing to that failure this year was their play on home ice, as they lost six in a row at Nationwide Arena to end the campaign.
“It’s terrible,” Bowness said. “Inexcusable. If they’re not embarrassed by it, not only tonight, they’re on the wrong team. They are. They’ve got to be embarrassed with that.”
While Bowness referenced multiple times that he doesn’t yet have a contract for next season, he sounded interested in returning for the 2026-27 season.
“We scratched the itch,” Bowness said. “I’m going to talk to Don. The players were told tonight, if I’m back, we’re changing this freaking culture.”
As of 2026, Bowness is the last active NHL coach who also served as a head coach for an NHL team in the 1980s. His 2,762 games as an NHL head or assistant coach are the most by anyone in league history.
