Columbus Blue Jackets restricted free agent Adam Fantilli did not take part in the team’s annual pre-camp golf outing on Tuesday, eight days before the club opens training camp and still without a contract for its 21-year-old centre.
Columbus Dispatch reporter Aaron Portzline posted on X on Sept. 8 that Fantilli, who he wrote “remains an unsigned restricted free agent just eight days from the start of training camp,” did not attend the outing at Double Eagle, the private golf club owned by Blue Jackets owner John P. McConnell. The Blue Jackets’ official account posted photographs from the CBJ Foundation Golf Classic the same day. Columbus opens training camp on Sept. 16.
Fantilli remains listed among Columbus’s unsigned Group 2 restricted free agents on the NHL’s official free agent tracker.
General manager Don Waddell has said publicly that he expects the file to be resolved. “We’re in communication. There’s a little difference of opinion right now, which is normal, and I’m confident that we’ll have him done before training camp,” Waddell told the Columbus Dispatch. In TSN’s account of those remarks, the sticking point is term. Columbus has pushed for a contract longer than five years, while the comparables Fantilli’s side can point to are both five-year deals. Waddell said term is “one of the differences” between the two sides and that money is “obviously a big part of it.”
Those comparables reset the top of the market over the summer. The Anaheim Ducks matched a five-year, $90-million US offer sheet from the Philadelphia Flyers for centre Leo Carlsson, a contract carrying an $18-million average annual value from 2026-27 through 2030-31 that made him the highest-paid player in the league by cap hit, ahead of Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl at $14 million. The Chicago Blackhawks signed Connor Bedard in July to a five-year, $75-million US extension at a $15-million cap hit over the same term.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, speaking on NHL Network, said those signings moved Fantilli’s number. “I think there was a ‘Before Carlsson’ and an ‘After Carlsson’ price with Fantilli,” Friedman said, adding that Columbus had not reached the second figure but that he had not heard the negotiation was in serious trouble.
The comparisons are close to unavoidable. Fantilli was taken third overall at the 2023 draft, behind Bedard at first and Carlsson at second.
Fantilli had 24 goals and 59 points in 82 games last season, including a career-high 35 assists. Carlsson had 29 goals and 67 points in 70 games. Bedard had 30 goals and 75 points in 69 games.
The cap math is the other constraint. Publicly reported figures put Columbus at roughly $12.6 million in salary-cap space, which is below the range Fantilli’s camp is understood to be seeking and would likely require the Blue Jackets to move salary out to complete a deal at that level.
One further detail should be treated with caution. The website NHL Trade Rumors reported that forward Kirill Marchenko, who is entering the final season of his contract, was also absent from Tuesday’s outing. That has not been confirmed by the club or by a named beat reporter, and it is not part of Portzline’s report.
For Edmonton, the Carlsson contract is the reason Draisaitl no longer holds the league’s highest average annual value, a distinction he carried into the off-season. The Oilers arrive at camp with no unsigned file of this kind. Their own absences are medical: the club announced on Aug. 26 that forwards Mattias Janmark and Matt Savoie, defenceman Alec Regula and goaltender Frederik Andersen are not expected to take part in camp, with Janmark and Regula recovering from medical procedures and Savoie and Andersen rehabilitating injuries sustained in off-season training.
Edmonton’s rookies report Sept. 11 and the main group follows on Sept. 16, the same day Columbus opens. The Oilers begin the regular season Sept. 29 against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Place.
Sources: Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) on X, Sept. 8, 2026; the Columbus Blue Jackets’ official account; NHL.com free agent tracker and contract releases; ESPN; TSN; NHL Network via Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman; NHL Trade Rumors; and the Edmonton Oilers’ Aug. 26 training camp statement.
