As one saga came to a close, another one may have just begun. The Columbus Blue Jackets have failed to lock up Adam Fantilli.I never considered an Adam Fantilli offer sheet a real possibility until recently. The Jackets signed their goaltender Jet Greaves to a 3 year 5 million extension which suddenly leaves them vulnerable. Cole Sillinger just settled at 3 years and 4.625 million a season, ducking a Monday hearing, and that leaves the Blue Jackets somewhere around 14.5 million in cap space.
Every other year 14.5 would be more than enough to sign a young center to his second contract. Not in today’s NHL though. Not with Bedard at 15 million and Carlsson at 18. Columbus would be wise to sign Fantilli before Sillinger sets them into a true cap crunch, but that seems like it is off the table as Fantilli has fled the country.
Ultimately, as is the case with every restricted free agent, Fantilli would have to sign elsewhere. However, if a team approaches him with the Carlsson contract, there is no way he is turning it down. I don’t believe Fantilli has shown worthy of that deal, but once again the GM would be banking on the upside and rising cap.
Nobody has to actually send an Adam Fantilli offer sheet to wreck Columbus
As with Carlsson, I don’t expect Fantilli to change teams. I do however see a team leveraging Columbus into making a move they wouldn’t want to make. Say a GM uses the offer sheet, or the potential of one, as leverage. A GM could call Columbus GM Waddell and announce that they are planning an offer sheet unless Columbus agrees to trade them Kirill Marchenko. What would Columbus do in this situation? I feel like they would be forced to trade Marchenko and likely do so at a significant discount.
Marchenko is a great winger. He notched 67 points in 76 games last season. He also has made splashes this summer when he indicated that he is unlikely to sign an extension in Columbus. So why not strong-arm Columbus into moving off of their best winger? Teams could try a similar approach for fellow young Russian Dmitri Voronkov too. Either way, it would be very smart for rival GMS to attempt this approach.
This tactic seems cruel, but it’s extremely common in today’s NHL. We saw Carolina acquire Miller from the Rangers last season using this exact approach. Instead of threatening an offer sheet on Miller, they decided to acquire him straight up. Teams trade RFA’s all the time to avoid dealing with an offer sheet. Just this offseason we have seen Pavel Dorofeyev and Maverick Borque traded to avoid such a situation.
Marchenko on a normal Tuesday would be worth a pretty penny. He is a player who is regularly described as the modern-day Datsyuk. I believe that praise to be too much, but he is exceptionally talented. Trading for him in this situation is not your typical Tuesday, this would be coming from a place of high leverage. Columbus does not want to mess around with the logistics of an offer sheet. Not only that, but Columbus’ owner may not be able to put up with the financial blowback of an offer sheet. John P. McConnell that majority owner of the Blue Jackets is among the poorest in the NHL with an estimated net worth around 1.1 billion. Front loading an offer sheet, similar to Carlsson’s, would feel quite heavy on the owner’s pockets. Much like Anaheim, I don’t believe Columbus has any intentions on being a cap team either. This matters in the NHL, owners want to turn a profit and that becomes significantly more difficult in a smaller market when spending to the cap.
There is a clear path towards exploiting everything going on in Columbus right now, it just takes one GM with the balls to make it come to fruition. I would not be surprised at all if one of the young Russians in Columbus was moved for a smaller than expected return before the summer is over.
Unfortunately for Columbus, they have already seen a young Russian moved off their roster in the last twelve months. Egor Chinakhov was cast away for essentially nothing. Not so they could protect their balance sheet, but rather because they couldn’t get anything out of the player. They were completely incorrect in making that call because Chinny went to Pittsburgh and completely thrived.
I don’t think this is a situation where the Penguins would attempt to extract yet another Russian from Columbus, but I sure wouldn’t hate if they tried. The team has a few players worth moving for Marchenko, but I’d find a deal very unlikely especially after the Chinakhov robbery. I would look out for teams like Philly, Utah, and Chicago.
