- Cole Sillinger and the Blue Jackets settled on a three-year contract worth $4.625 million per season
- The deal sidesteps an arbitration hearing and leaves Columbus with one big RFA still on the board in Adam Fantilli
- Read below for the full terms, Sillinger’s numbers, and what Don Waddell still has to finish this summer
The Blue Jackets checked another piece of their core off the list Friday. Columbus signed forward Cole Sillinger to a three-year contract, avoiding an arbitration hearing with one of its two remaining restricted free agents.
That contract carries a $4.625 million cap hit, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported:
We had the three-year, $4.625 million AAV settlement on our timeline as soon as it landed:
The No. 12 pick in the 2021 draft has been about as steady as it gets. Sillinger put up 33 points in each of the last two seasons and 32 the year before that. His 2025-26 campaign was his healthiest yet, 81 games with 8 goals and 25 assists.
At 23, he already has 140 points in 367 NHL games. Columbus has leaned on him down the middle since he jumped straight to the league as a teenager.
Sillinger filed for arbitration, the kind of hearing every team would rather sidestep. The Blue Jackets pulled off the same move with goalie Jet Greaves a few days earlier, settling on a three-year deal before either side had to sit in a hearing room. Both files are closed now.
One name is left. General manager Don Waddell still has to re-sign Adam Fantilli, and the Sillinger contract leaves roughly $14.5 million in cap space to get it done. The third-overall pick from 2023 is coming off a 59-point season and could eat most of that room after Connor Bedard and Leo Carlsson reset the market for young centers.
Columbus hasn’t reached the playoffs in six straight years, tied with Chicago for the third-longest drought in the league. Locking up Sillinger and Greaves is the quiet summer work that has to hold up if the Blue Jackets want that streak to end.
