Bettman's next nightmare? Another NHL team could soon relocate

Longtime NHL insider Jimmy Murphy dropped a bomb on the Blue Jackets Monday night, and Columbus fans are not going to like it.

Murphy posted that he's "starting to think #CBJ is about to become the next #Coyotes," a direct reference to Arizona's franchise collapse and eventual relocation to Utah.

He was careful to frame it as speculation, not inside information. "I really hope I am wrong because it's a great city and fanbase," Murphy wrote.

The tweet quoted a post from Union and Blue that hit even harder. "If you can't afford the operating expenses of a 2 billion dollar sports team, maybe it's time to let someone else have a go," the account wrote, tagging Curtis Deem.

Nobody attached a name to who exactly can't afford those expenses. That's the part fueling the panic.

Columbus closed the season 40-30-12 for 92 points, good for 18th overall and fifth in the Metro. The Blue Jackets finished on a brutal note, going 2-7-1 over their final ten games and dropping their last two straight.

Their goal differential landed dead even at 253-253, the kind of number that says a team was competitive some nights and lost the plot on others.

Rick Bowness and Don Waddell face a franchise at a crossroads

Rick Bowness took over behind the Columbus bench on January 12, mid-season, which is never a sign of a stable operation. Don Waddell runs the front office as general manager.

A coaching change that late in a season usually means ownership already lost patience once. Now there's chatter about losing patience with the market itself.

Here's the thing. Relocation talk in the NHL almost never happens overnight. It builds for years, quietly, before it becomes public. Think of it like a slow leak in a tire, you don't notice until you're stranded on the shoulder.

Columbus has one of the more passionate fanbases in the sport, and that shouldn't get buried under a financial headline. But passionate fanbases didn't save Arizona either.

Murphy stopped short of saying he has sources confirming anything. He was blunt about not wanting to be right.

That's the tension hanging over this franchise heading into the offseason. No official word from the NHL, no statement from ownership, just an insider publicly wondering out loud whether Columbus keeps its team.