Columbus Blue Jackets Lock Up Greaves and Sillinger, Leaving Fantilli as the Last Big Domino

The best week of Columbus Blue Jackets news all summer was, technically, two lawyers not entering a room. The club signed goaltender Jet Greaves and forward Cole Sillinger on back-to-back days, wiping out both of its scheduled salary arbitration hearings before anyone had to sit through the ritual insult session. In two strokes, Columbus locked in its starting goalie and a homegrown middle-six forward through 2029 — and cleared the stage so that one name now stands alone on the summer to-do list: Adam Fantilli.

This Week in Columbus Blue Jackets News

Start with Thursday's deal. Greaves signed for three years and $15 million, a $5 million cap hit, two days before his July 25 arbitration hearing. The filings showed just how far apart the sides had been on paper — Greaves asked for $7.5 million, the team countered at $2.8 million — and the settlement landing closer to the middle tells you both numbers were opening bids. The 25-year-old earned it the honest way: a .908 save percentage across 55 games last season while carrying the crease, with underlying numbers (per Pro Hockey Rumors, his 16.5 goals saved above expected ranked ninth in the league) that say he was better than the team in front of him. He's now the netminder of record, with Elvis Merzlikins entering the final year of his contract.

Friday brought the Sillinger deal: three years, $13.875 million, a $4.625 million cap hit, with the 23-year-old set to hit unrestricted free agency at 25 when it expires. That's a fair price for a former 12th overall pick who has grown into a legitimate two-way center, and short enough term that both sides keep their options open. Earlier in the week, Columbus also brought back Danton Heinen on a one-year, two-way deal — the veteran winger had 10 points in 33 games after arriving from Pittsburgh at last season's deadline — and got one piece of genuinely bad news: Isac Lundestrom ruptured his right Achilles tendon in offseason training, his second Achilles tear in three years. He had surgery and is expected back around early November, which means the fourth-line center opens the season on the shelf.

The Fantilli Standoff, Politely Paused

Which brings us to the only unsigned restricted free agent left. Adam Fantilli is coming off a career year — 24 goals and 59 points — and negotiations on his second contract were reportedly paused late this week while the young center takes a vacation, with The Athletic's Aaron Portzline noting there had been progress beforehand. Nobody in the building sounds nervous. GM Don Waddell has said publicly he talks to Fantilli's agent constantly, calls it a good-faith negotiation, and — most importantly — has vowed to match any offer sheet another team might try. With just under $14.5 million in cap space remaining after the Greaves and Sillinger signings, that's not bravado; the math actually works. An offer sheet rich enough to genuinely scare Columbus would cost the aggressor a fortune in draft-pick compensation. The likeliest outcome remains the boring one: Fantilli signs before camp, the only real questions being term and how many millions sit between the sides on the bridge-versus-long-term debate. Given what franchise centers cost once they hit their second deal, every week of delay is more suspense than the situation probably deserves.

An Offseason That Reset the Leadership Core

The bigger reshaping happened at the start of July, and it cut deep. Boone Jenner — captain for five seasons, franchise record-holder with 808 games played, a Blue Jacket for 13 years — left for Washington on a four-year, $23 million deal Columbus understandably declined to match for a 33-year-old. Mason Marchment departed too, taking five years and $35 million from San Jose. Losing your captain and a top-six winger in one afternoon would normally headline the whole summer, except the same day delivered the counterweight: Zach Werenski stayed. After trade scenarios were explored — he reportedly used his no-movement clause to veto a deal to Dallas — the star defenseman and the team issued joint statements, with Werenski saying flatly, "I want to win and I want to do that in Columbus." Coming off an 81-point season, that declaration is worth more than any July signing.

The actual imports were targeted rather than splashy. The headliner arrived by trade in late June: Valeri Nichushkin from Colorado for a second-round pick and two mid-rounders, a big, fast, hard-area winger with four years left on his deal and 49 points last season. Waddell praised his ability to "win puck battles" and play in the hard areas — the exact vocabulary of a front office trying to replace Jenner's identity, not just his minutes. Around him: energy forward Ryan Lomberg (two years, $1.3 million per), depth goalie Phoenix Copley, and 24-year-old Luke Tuch, acquired from Montreal in a minor-league swap and signed to a two-way deal on July 15.

Prospects: Hemming Arrives, Lindstrom Climbs Back

At the draft in Buffalo, Columbus used the 14th overall pick on Finnish winger Oscar Hemming, a power forward headed to Boston College, and added center Alessandro Di Iiorio at No. 94 in a class built for reliability over lottery-ticket upside. Development camp, held in the season's first week of July, was really about the older names, though. Cayden Lindstrom, the No. 4 pick in 2024, continued his long climb back from back surgery with a modest freshman year at Michigan State behind him, and talked about how the ordeal changed him as a player and a person. Defenseman Jackson Smith returns to Penn State chasing a bigger role, and Russian goalie Pyotr Andreyanov graded his own KHL season harshly, which scouts tend to like. None of the recent first-rounders has signed an entry-level deal yet — the pipeline is real but still on layaway.

Cap Room, Bowness, and a Roomy Runway

Even after a week of check-writing, Columbus sits among the league's most comfortable teams against the $104 million cap, with that $14.5 million or so earmarked for Fantilli and whatever opportunistic move Waddell finds later. Behind the bench, Rick Bowness returns for a full season after taking over when Dean Evason was fired in January — "I want to win here" was his own blunt summary. The mandate is obvious: last season's 40-30-12, 92-point finish was fifth in the Metropolitan and a sixth consecutive playoff miss, close enough to taste and short enough to sting. With Werenski committed, Greaves established, Kirill Marchenko's 27 goals, and Fantilli and Sillinger in their primes, the roster finally looks like it's aging in the right direction.

The Road to Opening Night

The league's first 84-game schedule dropped in mid-July, and it does Columbus some favors:

• Sept. 12–15 — prospect tournament in Detroit, with the preseason opener following Sept. 21 against the Red Wings
• Oct. 1 — season opener at Nationwide Arena vs. Buffalo, the start of a stretch with seven of the first nine at home
• Oct. 13 — Frozen Frenzy date against Florida
• Dec. 31 — Boone Jenner's return with Washington, a 2 p.m. New Year's Eve matinee that will not be a dry-eyed afternoon
• April 10 — finale at the Islanders

Training camp dates haven't been formally announced, but the preseason slate points to a mid-September start — one Lundestrom will watch from the trainer's room.

So the ledger on this stretch of Columbus Blue Jackets news reads cleanly: two arbitration cases erased, a goalie and a center secured, one franchise-altering injury dodged in the sense that it could have been worse, and one big contract left to write. Get Fantilli's signature on a page sometime in August, and Columbus enters camp with its deepest, youngest, most coherent roster of the six-year playoff drought — and a fan base with every reason to believe the drought is the next thing to go.