Blue Jackets Young Forward Facing Big Make-Or-Break Season
This is an important season for Kent Johnson.
Video Transcript
Mike, why do you think an extension hasn't been signed yet for Fantilli?
Do you see any teams trying to sign him to an offer sheet?
If a team does try to sign to an offer sheet, they're looking at Puckpedia right now and seeing that the Columbus Blue Jackets have $13.4 million in available cap space.
And they're saying, we can sign him to a $14 million offer sheet and put them between a rock and a hard place.
The question is whether Adam Fantilli wants to put them in that position.
I mean, we're approaching August.
It would lead me to believe that he's not interested in doing that.
Pat Brisson, his agent, I'm sure is talking to Don Waddell on a daily basis here.
I think he wants to get paid and he's had two solid seasons.
But we're not talking about a team here that is, I think, comfortable going to the cap ceiling.
And that's one of the reasons why you're probably going to see a guy like Zach Orensky get dealt in the next year or two before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
But they know their future is Fantilli as their number one center and they're going to have to pay him.
And I think it's basically going to have to be a compromise.
So I would say probably in the next couple of weeks, you're going to see him get signed for under that 13.4 amount.
