Blue Jackets sign Sillinger, Bezeau to bolster Cleveland depth

Columbus added two more forwards to Cleveland’s pipeline, signing Owen Sillinger and Riley Bezeau to one-year, two-way NHL/AHL contracts for 2026-27. For the Monsters, the immediate question is not just who was signed, but which jobs these two are being asked to fill in a forward group that needs reliable minutes, competition for ice time and a clearer bottom-six identity.

The Blue Jackets announced both moves on July 1, the opening day of NHL free agency, as part of a busy stretch of organizational transactions around the start of the offseason. Cleveland, Columbus’ AHL affiliate, has become the landing spot for players who can move between the NHL and AHL while keeping the roster flexible for the long season ahead.

Sillinger brings the more established AHL résumé. Columbus said the center has spent five seasons with Cleveland, serving as an alternate captain in two of them, and he made his NHL debut in 2025. Entering the 2025-26 season, TheAHL.com listed him with 271 career AHL games for Cleveland, along with 50 goals and 148 points. He then added another productive year for the Monsters, finishing 2025-26 with 69 games played, 14 goals, 20 assists and 34 points, while also being named the Cleveland Monsters’ 2025-26 IOA/American Specialty AHL Man of the Year.

That blend of production and leadership gives Cleveland a middle-six center who already knows the organization’s expectations and has proven he can carry a regular workload. At 2025-26 pace, Sillinger was not a passenger in the lineup, and his role now looks tied to stabilizing the Monsters’ forward rotation while pushing for more NHL looks if the Blue Jackets need a call-up.

Bezeau arrives with a different profile. The right wing played 24 games for Cleveland in 2025-26 and produced five goals, seven points and 74 penalty minutes. That kind of stat line points to a player who can bring edge, energy and some sandpaper to the lineup, a useful ingredient for an AHL team trying to survive the grind of the regular season and stay hard to play against in its own end.

Together, the signings give Cleveland two forwards with very different tracks but similar value: one with a long record of dependable AHL work, the other with the physical edge to compete for a role. For Columbus, it is another layer of protection for an affiliate that will matter again as the 2026-27 season takes shape.