The 5th Line is rightfully nervous about an Adam Fantilli offer sheet

This has been the summer of chaos around the NHL. With the salary cap rising for the first time in years, teams are suddenly finding space to make moves. Big moves. This includes a massive offer sheet from the Philadelphia Flyers, trying to poach away Anaheim Ducks forward Leo Carlsson.

Today, the Ducks matched that offer sheet, and will retain Carlsson for the next 5 years at a record-setting $18 million dollar AAV. While that seems high-very high-for a player of that age and caliber, it might be the new norm around the NHL.

For the Blue Jackets, that could be bad news.

The moment that offer sheet was announced, we were quick to voice our concern. After all, the Adam Fantilli comps here are far too eerie to overlook:

Carlsson was taken with the second overall pick at the 2023 NHL Draft, just one slot ahead of the Blue Jackets-who promptly took Adam Fantilli third overall. Their careers so far have been near mirror images of one another.

Through 201 games, Carlsson has scored 61 goals and 141 points for the Ducks, having quickly emerged as the centerpiece of their current roster build. Meanwhile, Fantilli has done the same in Columbus, scoring 67 goals and 140 points in 213 games.

This past season, Carlsson and the Ducks were long the talk of the league, as he started red hot and helped carry them into the playoffs. While Fantilli and the Blue Jackets missed out on the postseason, by the end of the year, it's hard to look at him as anything other than the most important player on the CBJ roster.

"Mo" has not missed a single game for the Blue Jackets over the last two seasons. While his scoring numbers did not take the leap that we hoped to see this year, his all-around game showed monumental improvement. It should be no surprise to anyone that Don Waddell called him the team's best player down the stretch. We saw it too.

The obvious concern here is a lingering offer sheet. If the Flyers were willing to throw $18 million dollars per year at Leo Carlsson; surely someone has done something similar to Adam Fantilli.

So far, Fantilli has not been swayed to put pen to paper on this sort of deal. That's great news, because while I believe the Blue Jackets could cover that kind of AAV; it's the bonus money that made that offer sheet so hard to match. Does the McConnell family have $19.5 million dollars laying around?

Even without an offer sheet, the reality has changed.

Heading into the summer, it felt like Mo, and Carlsson, and maybe even Connor Bedard; were all heading towards a roughly $11-$14 million dollar AAV. Now, this offer sheet has blown that out of the water. I think that's the short-term cost to keep Fantilli around.

If the Jackets want to extend him long-term, does his AAV exceed $15 million dollars? It just might. And, to be honest, they would probably be wise to make that deal. He's a #1 center whose value isn't going to go down, and in a rising cap world, that could be a bargain down the road.

The bummer for the Blue Jackets is that this may cost them another player from the roster. They have just under $25 million to sign Fantilli, Cole Sillinger, and Jet Greaves. Now that this Carlsson deal has jacked up the market, I don't see how they can get them all done without moving someone else out.

We'll see. It's good that Don Waddell has brought respect and stability to this team's front office. Because without it, this might be a completely different situation. Just ask Pat Verbeek. Lets hope Mo and his camp can find reasonable terms with the team, and they can keep building a team around him.

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