Blue Jackets sign Mikael Pyyhtia to two-year extension after breakout in Cleveland

Mikael Pyyhtia’s new contract gives the Cleveland Monsters a proven middle-six driver and gives the Columbus Blue Jackets a clearer handoff between their AHL and NHL rosters. The two-year extension, announced June 26, runs through the 2027-28 season and starts as a two-way NHL-AHL deal in 2026-27 before shifting to a one-way NHL contract in 2027-28.

That structure is the story. Columbus is not just keeping a depth forward around. It is signaling that Pyyhtia has moved past being a temporary call-up and into the kind of player who can hold a permanent organizational spot, whether that means minutes in Cleveland or a more stable role in Columbus. Don Waddell, the club’s president of hockey operations and general manager, called him a “versatile, two-way forward” who brings “speed, energy and competitiveness,” and added that he “was very good in Cleveland last season.”

The numbers back up the climb. In 59 AHL games last season, Pyyhtia posted career highs with 21 goals, 28 assists and 49 points, while also scoring seven power-play goals and three shorthanded goals on 126 shots. He led Cleveland in shorthanded goals, finished second on the club in goals, points and power-play goals, and ranked third in assists. For a 24-year-old winger drafted by Columbus in the fourth round, 114th overall, in the 2020 NHL Draft, that is the kind of breakout that forces a front office to redraw the path upward.

It also tightens the Monsters’ lineup picture. Pyyhtia gives Cleveland a penalty-killing forward who can score in transition and play up or down the lineup without dragging the pace. That matters in a market where development is the job. It also affects the queue behind him, because every minute he takes on special teams or in the top nine is a minute younger forwards have to win somewhere else. When Columbus loaned Pyyhtia to Cleveland on January 19 after he had played five NHL games that season, it reinforced the same point: he is a trusted shuttle piece, not a fringe stopgap.

His Columbus track record shows why the Blue Jackets moved now. After previously sending him and Luca Del Bel Belluz to Cleveland during the February 8, 2025 break, the club re-signed Pyyhtia to a one-year, two-way deal last August before stretching the commitment to two seasons this week. He now has 96 points in 154 career AHL games with Cleveland and 11 points in 71 NHL games since making his debut late in 2022-23. With Columbus’ annual prospects development camp set for June 29 through July 2 at the OhioHealth Ice Haus, the club is locking in one player who already looks ready to travel both directions on the Cleveland-to-Columbus ladder.