According to Elliotte Friedman, the arbitration filings are in between the Columbus Blue Jackets and goaltender Jet Greaves.
Greaves has valued himself at a $7.5MM cap hit, and the Blue Jackets have him at a $2.8MM cap hit. This is a $4.7MM gap between the sides. The hearing is set for this Thursday.
Both sides can continue to negotiate before the July 23rd hearing but if no deal is made, a third-party arbitrator will have to settle the salary for the player. Greaves has more than one year before he can become a UFA after 2028-29, which means that the Blue Jackets can opt for a one or two-year deal after the ruling is made, due 48 hours after the hearing.
At the latest, Greaves will be signed by this Saturday.
It was previously reported by Aaron Portzline of The Athletic that Columbus wants a multi-year extension done with Greaves. Now, with the numbers presented, it appears that the Jackets don’t value his lone season as a starter enough to compensate at that cap hit. Comparatively, Greaves has set the bar high, and for how he performed this season, it doesn’t come without the numbers he tallied to back this up.
The 25-year-old finished his 2025-26 season with a .908 save percentage and a 2.8 goals against average in 55 games played. He had yet to play above 20 games before this year. Greaves had 16.5 Goals Saved Above Expected, ranking ninth this season among all goalies.
Those were better numbers than Spencer Knight, Stuart Skinner, Filip Gustavsson, to name a few, and Arturs Silovs, who will make the same AAV as how Columbus valued him at.
On the other hand, Greaves values himself as a top-10 goaltender in the NHL, and despite his stellar numbers from last season, they’re the only major numbers he’s been able to demonstrate at the NHL level. In 2024-25, he played just 11 NHL games, racking up 14.5 GSAx on a 1.91 goals against average and .938 save percentage with Columbus. His AHL numbers, racking up an 82-51-22 record in four seasons with the Cleveland Monsters, the Jackets affilate, precede him towards his elevation to the NHL.
If Columbus did agree on Greaves’ number, it would value him at a cap hit above Sergei Bobrovsky and wouldn’t be far off in annual payment from Vezina candidates like Ilya Sorokin and Jeremy Swayman. To note, Logan Thompson, who led the NHL last season in GSAx at 29.3, makes a few million dollars less than $7MM at $5.85MM a year.
Greaves is one of three RFAs the Blue Jackets have yet to sign this offseason, with 23-year-old forward Cole Sillinger due for a new contract and former 2023 No. 3 overall pick Adam Fantilli in need of what Columbus hopes are both long-term contracts for both players. The Blue Jackets have $23MM in cap space to work with, not just Greaves, but those two as well.
Ideally, both sides will meet in the middle on the number soon enough. AFP Analytics had two projected deals for Greaves: a one-year deal around $4MM and a four-year contract at $6MM AAV. If Columbus wants to pay him like the No. 1 goaltender he is for them now, they’ll definitely need to go above the number they set.
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