Blue Jackets sign first-round pick Cole Sillinger to entry-level contract

The Columbus Blue Jackets have finalized a deal with one of their recent first-round picks, forward Cole Sillinger. The team announced that Sillinger has signed his three-year entry-level contract. PuckPedia reports that the deal will carry an $832.5K base salary, a $925K cap hit, and an AAV of $1.63M as a result of performance bonuses. The No. 12 overall pick last month, Sillinger was the second of three Blue Jackets’ first-rounders but is the first one to sign his ELC.

Sillinger, 18, was selected with the pick that Columbus acquired in the Seth Jones trade, which makes him a symbol of the Blue Jackets' next steps as a retooling franchise. Most felt that the team used the pick wisely, as Sillinger was regarded as a consensus top-16 pick. A two-way center with a snipe of a shot, Sillinger is a dangerous offensive weapon who puts in the work defensively as well. Sillinger has excelled in each of the past two years, first with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers and then with the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede. Although already a dangerous talent, Sillinger is still likely to return to Medicine Hat this season despite his ELC.

The Sillinger name should sound familiar, not only to Columbus fans but to 11 other fan bases and NHL spectators at large. Mike Sillinger, who was selected one spot ahead of his son at No. 11 overall in 1989, played for a dozen NHL teams over a 17-year career that included more than 1,000 games. It just so happens that Cole was born in Columbus is 2003 while Mike was playing in his second of back-to-back 43-point seasons with the young Blue Jackets franchise. This makes Cole Sillinger’s selection and signing somewhat of a homecoming. Columbus will give him adequate time to develop, but they know that the younger Sillinger could have the makings of a fan favorite, much like his dad was in the franchise’s early days.