Adam Fantilli's offer sheet isn't the Blue Jackets' real risk

The bigger danger is one Don Waddell is quietly building himself.

The panic is easy to understand.

Projections have the Columbus Blue Jackets left with roughly $14.77 million after Cole Sillinger and Jet Greaves are paid, tight against a Fantilli deal that could clear $14 million.

That framing drove this week's most-shared take.

Here is the part the offer sheet talk skips. Any Fantilli offer above $11.7 million triggers the top compensation tier - four first-round picks - a price essentially no general manager pays.

Columbus also entered the summer with about $25 million in space, per ESPN, meaning Waddell can match almost anything a rival dares to submit.

The real update landed July 5.

Aaron Portzline reported that Sillinger and Greaves both filed for salary arbitration, which removes them from offer sheet eligibility entirely.

That leaves Fantilli as the lone Blue Jacket a rival could even target, since he lacks the NHL service time to file for arbitration himself. It also hands Columbus cost certainty on two of its three RFAs, shrinking this summer's supposed squeeze.

Short arbitration awards solve July and detonate next summer. One or two-year terms walk Sillinger and Greaves straight into 2027, the same offseason Kirill Marchenko's deal expires and a long-term Fantilli extension comes due.

Every dollar saved on a Sillinger or Greaves bridge is a dollar the 2027 roster has to find again, at a higher price, alongside raises for a maturing core.

Waddell is not fighting an offer sheet. He is deciding whether to absorb one hard cap year now or stack four raises into a single 2027 reckoning.

The offer sheet is the story fans clicked. The convergence Waddell is engineering is the one that decides whether this window closes early.

Also read on House Of Hockey :
Oilers involved in trade talks for star Penguins forward