Columbus is the most quietly encouraging team in hockey, a young group that spent last season on the doorstep of the playoffs, and the two names most tied to its future are its defenceman and its centre. I wrote recently about Zach Werenski's overlooked season, the anchor nobody credited. This is about the other half of the foundation, and it comes with a gentler message. Adam Fantilli is going to be very good. He is not there yet, and the numbers are worth reading honestly before the hype gets ahead of them.
| Situation | Goals | Points | On-ice xGF% |
|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 24 | 59 | 58% |
| 5-on-5 | 14 | 34 | 52% |
Start with the good, because there is plenty. Fantilli scored 24 goals and, tellingly, did it on 27.5 expected, meaning he actually under-finished his chances. That is the opposite of a warning sign; it says the goal total is more likely to climb than to fall as his shooting catches up to the quality of his looks. He generates offence, he plays a full 82-game workload, and at 58 percent his all-situations on-ice share looks like a budding star. The raw materials are exactly what Columbus hoped for when it drafted him.
The number the hype skips
Now the part that gets left out of the highlight packages. At five-on-five, Fantilli's on-ice expected-goals share was 52 percent, and his team was a 52 percent group without him too. A neutral on/off, in other words. He was also sheltered, starting close to three-quarters of his five-on-five shifts in the offensive zone, the deployment you give a young player you are protecting rather than one you are leaning on. Put those two facts together and the picture is clear: a lot of Fantilli's shine comes from the power play and from favourable minutes, and at even strength, against real competition, he is not yet driving play the way a true number-one centre does.
Why this is fine, actually
None of this is a knock. It is a timeline. Fantilli is young, and the developmental path for a big, fast, skilled centre almost always runs through exactly this stage: score first, drive play later. The offence and the tools arrive early; the two-way command of a game, the ability to tilt the ice against the other team's best in neutral or defensive deployment, is the last thing to come, and it usually shows up in a player's early twenties as the details catch up to the talent. Fantilli is right on schedule. The mistake would be to look at 59 points and a 58 percent all-situations number and declare the development finished, when the five-on-five evidence says the most important growth is still ahead.
What it means for Columbus
Patience, and correct expectations. The Blue Jackets do not need Fantilli to be a finished number-one centre next season; they need him to keep taking the incremental steps, earn tougher minutes, and grow into the deployment. If the offensive-zone shelter comes down and the on-ice share holds or climbs, that is the signal that the real leap has happened. Rushing him into a workload his even-strength game is not ready for would do more harm than good. The encouraging truth is that Columbus has time, because the rest of the young core, Werenski chief among them, is good enough to win now while Fantilli finishes becoming what he will be.
The bottom line
Adam Fantilli is a genuine building block and a future problem for the rest of the league, and the under-finished goal total says the counting stats are about to get better. But the five-on-five numbers are a useful cold shower on the hype: he is a sheltered, offence-first young centre whose two-way impact is still a work in progress, not a finished star. That is not a disappointment. It is a young centre exactly where he should be, on a team patient enough to let him get the rest of the way there.