The Columbus Blue Jackets may be staring at a tricky summer if Adam Fantilli’s contract situation keeps drawing attention around the league. With Jet Greaves in arbitration and Cole Sillinger also needing a new deal, Columbus could be forced to juggle a lot of cap space in a short stretch, and that’s exactly why teams are watching closely.
Insider David Pagnotta said that squeeze has not gone unnoticed. Rival clubs are starting to weigh whether an aggressive offer sheet for Fantilli could put the Blue Jackets in a bind.
Fantilli, 21, is coming off a 59-point season and remains one of the most appealing restricted free agents on the board. Nothing is close yet, but the setup is there for someone to make life difficult for Columbus.
Mitch Marner’s departure from the Toronto Maple Leafs is also getting fresh scrutiny, this time from his agent, Darren Ferris. Speaking on a recent podcast, Ferris pointed to the beginning of Marner’s NHL career as a source of tension, saying the winger did not receive the same bonus structure as Auston Matthews. He also said Marner was never fully backed by the organization and wound up carrying too much of the blame for Toronto’s playoff failures.
Ferris said there has been a lot of misinformation around the contract talks and the split. He explained:
“Here’s really what people don’t know. Through that year, Brad Treliving and I sat down a couple of times and discussed Mitch’s situation.
I tabled a lot of concerns and said we’d wait and see how the year played out before entering into any contract discussions. And I think that Carolina event of what happened, I don’t think helped the situation, and I think there was no real effort by the organization to rectify any of the concerns.”
He added:
“At one point I even positioned, and that was early in the year, that Brad maybe look at opportunities for a trade if he wasn’t comfortable in waiting, and if they wanted to trade Mitch, he would consider going to the Western Conference. It wasn’t just Vegas at that time.
Honestly, I felt they always wanted to trade him regardless. I think just the whole Carolina episode was the catalyst here.
It was perceived differently in the media.”
In Ottawa, Senators GM Steve Staios said Brady Tkachuk’s eventual exit was not a total shock behind the scenes. Staios said the organization had been seeing signs for more than a year that Tkachuk might not stay long-term.
The Senators tried to keep the core together and build the right environment, but Staios said some things were out of their hands. Once the team had conversations with Tkachuk, the path became clearer.
He said the club had to move quickly once it understood the situation could become a problem. “One is it could become a distraction to the team and two is the return on value isn’t quite there.
So we were prudent; we engaged in the process, went through that diligently, and worked towards a solution.”
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Ottawa is among the teams being mentioned as a possible landing spot, and it is easy to see why the Senators would be interested in a player who could bolster the right side of their blue line. There is also some parallel intrigue around Vladislav Gavrikov in New York, where whispers suggest he may not be thrilled with the Rangers direction, but for now the focus in Ottawa remains on whether Karlsson ever becomes available at the right time. [Read more 🡒]