Adam Fantilli Is Still Unsigned and the Blue Jackets Have a Comparables Problem

Adam Fantilli is one of roughly 18 restricted free agents still without a contract for the 2026-27 season, and the gap between what he wants and what Columbus wants to pay is a direct consequence of what other young centers signed this summer.

Reporting from Elliotte Friedman indicates Fantilli's camp is targeting a range near what Leo Carlsson and Connor Bedard received, in the $15 million neighborhood, while the Blue Jackets are closer to $12 million or $12.5 million. Bedard signed a five-year extension with Chicago carrying a $15 million cap hit in mid-July, which reset the market for young centers and made Columbus's job substantially harder.

Fantilli scored 24 goals and set a career high with 59 points in 82 games last season. Columbus has roughly $14.49 million in cap space after extending goaltender Jet Greaves and forward Cole Sillinger to three-year deals.

Why the comparables hurt

The problem is not that Fantilli is asking for more than he is worth in a vacuum. It is that the contracts signed ahead of him were signed by players with stronger production profiles at similar ages, and Fantilli's representation is entitled to point at them anyway.

A 59-point season from a 21-year-old center is genuinely good. It is not a $15 million season by any conventional measure. But contract negotiations do not run on conventional measures when a player's peer group just got paid, and both sides know that the alternative to agreeing is a stalemate that helps nobody.

The cap space figure is the constraint that makes this concrete. Columbus can fit a $12.5 million cap hit comfortably. It can fit $15 million only by leaving almost nothing for depth, and a team that spends its entire remaining flexibility on one forward has made a decision about the rest of its roster.

The deadline that is driving everything

The new collective bargaining agreement sets September 15, 2026 as the final day a player can sign an eight-year maximum-term extension with his current club. Starting September 16, the maximum available term drops to seven years.

That is a real incentive for both sides on long-term deals, and it explains why several of the league's remaining restricted free agent standoffs have a hard date attached to them. A year of contract security is worth money, and a player who signs on September 16 rather than September 14 gives some of it up.

Whether that deadline binds Fantilli specifically depends on whether either side wants an eight-year term at all. A bridge deal, which is what Bedard ultimately signed at five years, sidesteps the cliff entirely.

Fantasy fallout

Fantilli is a top-six center whose fantasy value has been trending up, and an unsigned status in mid-August is not yet a reason to move him down draft boards. Restricted free agents in this league almost always sign, and they almost always sign before games that count.

The risk to price in is a missed training camp. A center who arrives late loses the reps that determine line assignments and power play deployment, and power play time is the single largest driver of fantasy value for a forward at his production level. A player who signs on September 20 and plays opening night is fine. A player who signs in October is not.

Managers drafting in early September should treat Fantilli as a slight discount candidate rather than a fade. The underlying talent is not in question and the contract will get done.

The Verdexed model take

The model's read is that this settles closer to Columbus's number than to Fantilli's, and probably on a shorter term than either side originally wanted.

The logic is straightforward. Fantilli's production does not support the Bedard comparable, and Columbus has demonstrated with the Greaves and Sillinger extensions that it is willing to commit money to its core on team-friendly structures. A bridge deal in the low-to-mid teens on a term of three or four years lets Fantilli bet on himself and lets the Blue Jackets preserve flexibility, which is the outcome that serves both parties.

The model does not view an offer sheet as likely, despite periodic speculation about it. Offer sheets remain rare, the compensation structure at this salary level is punitive, and Columbus has the cap room to match anything realistic.

What is next

Watch the calendar. The September 15 term cliff will either force movement or reveal that neither side wanted maximum term in the first place. Training camp opening is the second pressure point, and the one that actually affects fantasy managers.

For Blue Jackets fans and for anyone with a stake in the Metropolitan Division market, the relevant question is not whether Fantilli plays this season. He will. It is whether Columbus emerges from this negotiation with enough cap flexibility to address the rest of a roster that has been building toward relevance, or whether one contract consumes the runway.

That is the part that decides how good this team actually is, and it will be answered in the next five weeks.

Why 18 unsigned restricted free agents is not normal

Context worth holding onto: a group this large still unsigned in the second week of August is unusual, and it is not a coincidence. The new collective bargaining agreement changed the rules around term, the cap has moved, and a handful of enormous young-player contracts landed in a short window and reset every comparable simultaneously.

That produced a market where agents can point to numbers that did not exist last summer and teams can reasonably argue those numbers do not apply to their player. Most of these standoffs are about the same disagreement, and most will resolve the same way, with a compromise landing between the two positions in the final two weeks before camp.

For fantasy managers, the practical instruction is to not overreact to any one of them. Unsigned in August is a story. Unsigned in October would be a crisis, and the league has essentially never had one.