Elliotte Friedman just put the quiet part of the Adam Fantilli negotiation on national television, and I am done pretending Columbus can spin this as ordinary paperwork. There is a before-Carlsson number and an after-Carlsson number, and the Blue Jackets are still living in the wrong calendar.
Friedman said it clean on NHL Network: “I hadn’t heard much, except there was a gap. I think there was a before-Carlsson and an after-Carlsson price with Fantilli.” Then he drove the stake deeper. “I just heard that the price changed and Columbus hasn’t gotten there yet.” That is not noise. That is the market speaking through the most reliable insider in the sport, and Don Waddell’s front office is still treating it like a suggestion.
I have watched this league long enough to know when a franchise is negotiating against reality. Leo Carlsson, the No. 2 pick in the same draft class, signed five years and $90 million on an offer sheet Philadelphia forced Anaheim to match at $18 million a year. Connor Bedard, the No. 1, locked in five years and $75 million at $15 million AAV with Chicago. Fantilli was the No. 3 pick. His career line through 2025-26 sits at 67 goals and 140 points in 213 games. Carlsson’s sits at 61 goals and 141 points in 201. Nearly identical production. Nearly identical age. One guy is paid like a franchise center. The other is being offered something in the $12 million to $12.5 million range while his camp eyes the neighborhood of $15 million. That gap is not a rounding error. It is an insult dressed up as process.
Waddell’s Confidence Is Running Out of Calendar
Don Waddell told The Columbus Dispatch on August 30 that the sides were talking and that “a little difference of opinion right now” was normal. He said he was “confident that we’ll have him done before training camp.” He added he did not think Fantilli wanted to miss camp and the club did not want him missing it either. Training camp opens around September 16. We are past early September and the pen is still dry. Confidence without a signature is just hope with a press credential.
I have watched restricted free agents get squeezed for decades, and I am telling you the power structure flipped this summer. Offer sheets stopped being theoretical theater. Carlsson’s deal reset every comparable for every young center with real minutes and real production. Fantilli has no arbitration rights, which used to mean the team held the hammer. After Carlsson, that hammer looks a lot more like a paperweight. Pat Brisson knows it. Friedman confirmed Columbus has not moved far enough to meet what Fantilli’s side now sees as the floor.
Last season Fantilli put up 24 goals and 59 points in 82 games while averaging nearly 19 minutes a night. That is not a project anymore. That is a top-line center on a team that still has not figured out how to surround him with enough help to stop the minus-13 from screaming on the scoresheet. You do not lowball the guy you need to build around because your cap sheet got tight after other deals. You find the money or you own the holdout.
The Before Price Is Dead and Columbus Knows It
Let me tell you something about what “before-Carlsson” money actually means in 2026. It means the Blue Jackets are still shopping with last summer’s flyer while the rest of the league has already marked the merchandise. Aaron Portzline had projected something in the $13 million to $13.5 million range on a five-year term back in July. That already felt like the middle of the fairway once Bedard and Carlsson cleared. If Columbus is still hovering near $12 million AAV while Fantilli’s camp is staring at $15 million, the distance is not “a little difference of opinion.” It is a philosophical refusal to accept the new comps.
I said the second that Carlsson sheet landed that every RFA center in this class just got richer. Nobody in Columbus wanted to hear it. Now Friedman is on the air saying the price changed and the Jackets have not gotten there. The franchise can keep calling it normal. The calendar does not care. An unsigned 21-year-old center with 140 career points walking into September without a deal is how you turn a negotiation into a narrative, and the narrative will not be kind to the team that drafted him third overall and then blinked at the market he helped create.
Fantilli is not asking to be Carlsson dollar-for-dollar. He is asking Columbus to stop pretending the old ladder still exists. Five years in the mid-teens is the conversation. Anything less invites the exact risk Waddell claimed he wanted to avoid: a star prospect missing the first days of camp while the fan base learns, in real time, how much the front office values the player it keeps calling foundational.
The Blue Jackets have roughly two weeks of real runway. Friedman already told you where the money moved. Waddell already told you he does not want Fantilli missing camp. The only person left who has not said the quiet part is the one holding the checkbook. Pay the after-Carlsson price, or spend the opening week of camp explaining why the No. 3 pick is still on the outside looking in at a number the rest of the league already recognized.
