So long, Ann Arbor.
Adam Fantilli’s new hockey home is Columbus after agreeing to a three-year, entry-level contract Saturday to start his NHL career with the Blue Jackets. Fantilli, 19, was drafted third overall at the NHL draft Wednesday in Nashville, after starring as a freshman at the University of Michigan. The high-scoring center will make a base salary of $950,000 each season, receive a $95,000 annual signing bonus and can earn up to $2.2 million more per season in performance bonuses.
Unlike last year’s first day of free agency, when Columbus reeled in Johnny Gaudreau, the Blue Jackets’ lone signing Saturday was Fantilli — who got his first tours of Columbus with his family and picked out his number (11).
“It’s starting to sink in a little bit,” Fantilli said. “Wearing the jersey helps, but coming to the city and seeing how gorgeous it is and watching that video of The 5th Line, the watch party there (for the draft), and how welcoming they’re being has been amazing.”
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Fantilli is also slated to participate in the Blue Jackets’ development camp, which runs Sunday through Wednesday at Chiller North. Rather than preparing for a sophomore season in college, the Jackets’ camp will be his first taste of professional hockey.
“It was a brief discussion,” Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. “I think we both felt that he was ready to take the next step, the next challenge. We were very clear on that in the conversation with him. We watched him all year on different levels, in college, in the world junior, in the men’s world championships playing against mostly NHL players. He’s physically ready, he’s mentally ready to take the next step and the next challenge. That was our decision and he agreed.”
Along with becoming the third freshman ever to win the prestigious Hobey Baker Award as college hockey’s top player, Fantilli added gold medals with Canada at the world junior championships and men’s worlds. He’s the only player to get all three of those honors in the same season and led Michigan to an appearance in the NCAA’s Frozen Four too.
Now it’s time to focus on the Blue Jackets, who hope to rebound from a miserable season that led to the draft position where Fantilli was selected. Fantilli will have an NHL roster spot available to earn at training camp in September and he’ll get every opportunity to claim it.
“He’s a physically mature guy,” Kekalainen said. “He played against NHL players in the world championships, and (Canada) started him on the fourth line and his role increased the whole time. That was actually a big part of Canada winning, with that goal at the end, and his role just kept increasing the whole tournament. He was one of the key players when they won.”
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Fantillli hopes to do the same in Columbus, where’s he’s “over the moon” to join the Blue Jackets as a future game-changer at No. 1 center.
“That’s exciting and I’m honored to have those types of expectations,” Fantilli said. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to meet them. I just want to get there and work as hard as I can, compete as hard as I can and be the best version of myself I can be.”
Columbus Blue Jackets sidelined on NHL’s ‘Frenzy’
Available players began signing contracts in bunches once the door flew open on free agency at noon Saturday, but nobody signed with Columbus.
Instead, several former Blue Jackets signed elsewhere. Goalie Joonas Korpisalo agreeed to a five-year contract with the Ottawa Senators. Forward Lane Pederson signed a two-year contract with the Edmonton Oilers, forward Gustav Nyquist signed with the Nashville Predators and Matt Duchene signed with the Dallas Stars after Nashville bought out his contract.
Kekalainen said the lack of UFA signings wasn’t for a lack of trying.
“It’s a slow start, maybe, in this (media) room, but we’ve been fast at it the whole day with everything that we’re working on,” he said. “If we find that piece that makes us better, we’ll do it. If we don’t, then we’ll continue with the group we have right now, and I think we’ve gotten a lot better just from getting healthy and adding two defensemen and now adding Adam (Fantilli) into the mix. I have full confidence that we will be a lot better going into next year.”
The Blue Jackets also introduced Mike Babcock, began searching for goaltending depth and explored trade ideas to trim a couple positional overloads while increasing salary-cap space.
“We’re not in a rush,” Kekalainen said. “It’s a good thing to have depth and we saw how many injuries we had last year. We need that depth and now we’ve got nine NHL caliber players competing for six (defensive) spots that play every night, and we could easily carry eight on the roster. That’s not a problem.”
bhedger@dispatch.com
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Adam Fantilli signs with Blue Jackets over returning to Michigan
