Fabbro revitalized his career this season in Columbus.

• Player Overview
• What We Know
• Comparables
• Projection

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Player Overview

Selected 17th overall by the Nashville Predators in the 2016 NHL Draft, Dante Fabbro spent three seasons after being drafted with Boston University in the NCAA. Upon making the jump to the NHL for the 2019-20 season, Fabbro took on a fairly large role with the Predators early on. Over his first three full NHL seasons, the defenseman reached at least 19 minutes per game each year.

However, Fabbro’s role took a bit of a dip over the next two years, and across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, the defenseman averaged only about 17 minutes per game. With the defenseman’s role really diminishing by this past season, he was placed on waivers, and claimed by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

In Columbus though, Fabbro managed to revitalize his NHL career. He played primarily alongside Zach Werenski, and across 62 games in Columbus, the defender managed nine goals and 26 points. Alongside Werenski, Fabbro took on some of the toughest matchups of any defender on the team in terms of quality of competition, per the Frozen Tools’ player usage chart, while being tasked with over 21 minutes per game in ice time.

Following his successful stint in Columbus, Fabbro has set himself up for a raise this summer. At his best, he can be a very reliable defender in his own end, and has shown to be able to handle tough minutes. If Fabbro does test free agency, he could be a nice addition for a team looking to stabilize the right side of their defense group.

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What We Know

• Per the Fourth Period’s report on June 20, contract negotiations were underway between Fabbro and the Blue Jackets, but a deal was not close.

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Comparables

Below, we predict what Fabbro’s deal could look like at different lengths. For more information on the stats/tables used below, visit the About the Site page. With Fabbro now 27 years old, comparables were generally kept to defensemen who were between 25 and 29 years old by Dec. 31 of the first year of their contract. Note: ages listed in the tables represent their age by Dec. 31 in the first year of their contract, and each player’s cap hit has been adjusted to a $95.5M cap hit, shown in the far right of the table.

6 YEARS

A six-year contract is likely the longest term we’d see for Fabbro. While he’d be eligible to sign for eight years in Columbus or seven years elsewhere, his numbers align more closely with defenders who signed at a shorter term.

Of course, there’s still some risk in signing Fabbro to a six-year deal, given he only really has a partial season worth of a sample size playing in such a big role. Regardless, a list of defenders who signed for six years around a similar age is below, to use as comparables.

Player	Age	First Year of Contract	Signing Year P/82	Career P/82	TOI Season	Career TOI	Contract	On $95.5M Cap
Dante Fabbro	27	2025	31 68GP	21 377GP	20:54	18:36
*Zach Werenski	25	2022	47 35GP	46 335GP	24:22	22:43	$9.58M 6 years	$11.09M 6 years
*Nate Schmidt	28	2019	39 84GP	24 284GP	22:14	18:08	$5.95M 6 years	$6.97M 6 years
Esa Lindell	25	2019	32 82GP	26 239GP	24:20	22:39	$5.80M 6 years	$6.90M 6 years
Danny DeKeyser	26	2016	21 78GP	26 234GP	21:48	21:17	$5.00M 6 years	$6.54M 6 years
Dmitry Orlov	26	2017	33 82GP	27 283GP	19:32	17:53	$5.10M 6 years	$6.49M 6 years
Matt Roy	29	2024	21 81GP	24 369GP	20:54	19:28	$5.75M 6 years	$6.24M 6 years
**Marcus Pettersson	29	2025	30 49GP	25 493GP	22:09	18:50	$5.50M 6 years	$5.50M 6 years
Nikita Zadorov	29	2024	22 75GP	19 642GP	17:26	18:05	$5.00M 6 years	$5.43M 6 years
Ryan Graves	28	2023	27 78GP	27 302GP	19:57	18:59	$4.50M 6 years	$5.15M 6 years

Obviously, Fabbro’s numbers don’t compare overly well to the defenders at the top of the table, based on a mix of production and/or ice time. Then while his stats compare better to the likes of Danny DeKeyser and Dmitry Orlov, those two contracts were signed nearly a decade ago, and there are better comps available.

Matt Roy in particular stands out as a very good, recent comp. The defenders had identical ice time in their signing year, along with similar career production, across almost the same total number of career games played. Then while Roy had slightly higher career usage, Fabbro had the higher signing year production.

While Fabbro’s numbers don’t look quite as good when compared to Marcus Pettersson, he was higher than Nikita Zadorov in every category, and compares pretty fairly to Ryan Graves.

We’ve also seen that with defenders around this age, the adjusted cap hit doesn’t necessarily play as much of a role as the actual cap hit that some of these more recent defenders signed for (as discussed in the Marcus Pettersson contract analysis article). With the likes of Roy and Pettersson signing for between $5.75M and $5.5M, and Fabbro’s numbers being better than those of Nikita Zadorov ($5M cap hit), we can expect that a six-year deal for Fabbro would likely end up somewhere above $5M per year, likely around the $5.5M mark.

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5 YEARS

A five-year deal would be another option for Fabbro, with comparables below.

Player	Age	First Year of Contract	Signing Year P/82	Career P/82	TOI Season	Career TOI	Contract	On $95.5M Cap
Dante Fabbro	27	2025	31 68GP	21 377GP	20:54	18:36
Tyler Myers	29	2019	32 80GP	34 635GP	20:21	22:22	$6.00M 5 years	$7.03M 5 years
***T.J. Brodie	25	2015	35 88GP	28 192GP	24:09	20:54	$4.65M 5 years	$6.22M 5 years
*Chris Tanev	26	2015	22 61GP	16 217GP	21:01	18:49	$4.55M 5 years	$6.09M 5 years
**Rasmus Ristolainen	28	2022	23 50GP	36 592GP	21:26	23:37	$5.10M 5 years	$5.90M 5 years
*David Savard	26	2016	32 82GP	27 187GP	22:57	19:46	$4.25M 5 years	$5.56M 5 years
Jamie Oleksiak	29	2021	21 56GP	16 369GP	20:29	16:09	$4.60M 5 years	$5.39M 5 years
**Will Borgen	29	2025	8 50GP	18 270GP	16:21	16:38	$4.10M 5 years	$4.10M 5 years
*Jonas Siegenthaler	27	2023	16 74GP	13 175GP	20:34	17:25	$3.40M 5 years	$3.89M 5 years

Fabbro’s stats would put him below the $6.2M mark, based on using Tyler Myers and T.J. Brodie’s numbers as comps. However, he should also likely be at least $5.4M mark, based on better numbers that Jamie Olekisak, Will Borgen and Jonas Siegenthaler.

The likely range would be somewhere between $5.4M from Jamie Oleksiak’s adjusted cap hit, and $6.1M from Chris Tanev’s adjusted cap hit. While Fabbro did have similar ice time to Tanev ($6.1M adjusted cap hit) with better production, but he didn’t compare overly well to Rasmus Ristolainen ($5.9M adjusted cap hit) and David Savard ($5.6M adjusted cap hit). So comparing Fabbro against the comps based on adjusted cap hit, it looks like he could fall somewhere in the $5.5M range.

At the same time, looking at the actual contracts signed instead of the adjusted cap hits, all contracts other than Tylers Myers’ deal at the top of the table came with a cap hit quite a bit lower than $5.5M. So while Fabbro may align around that range in terms of the adjusted cap hits, it’s possible he could come in a little lower than that mark, based on the actual cap hits signed. While there’s a strong argument he should still exceed $4.5M, his cap hit may not be as high as the $5.5M mark, and could ultimately come in lower than that, possibly somewhere around $5M instead.

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4 YEARS

Four years would be a shorter possibility for Fabbro’s deal, with comparables below. While he would pretty clearly be below the top comps from the table (Sami Vatanen and above), there would be 15 other comps lower down the table, from adjusted cap hits of roughly $3.5M to $5.5M.

Player	Age	First Year of Contract	Signing Year P/82	Career P/82	TOI Season	Career TOI	Contract	On $95.5M Cap
Dante Fabbro	27	2025	31 68GP	21 377GP	20:54	18:36
Neal Pionk	26	2021	49 54GP	42 226GP	21:58	22:12	$5.88M 4 years	$6.89M 4 years
Torey Krug	25	2016	45 81GP	43 241GP	21:37	19:33	$5.25M 4 years	$6.87M 4 years
*Jared Spurgeon	27	2016	44 32GP	30 307GP	22:18	21:01	$5.19M 4 years	$6.79M 4 years
Sean Durzi	26	2024	44 76GP	41 212GP	22:43	20:47	$6.00M 4 years	$6.51M 4 years
Sami Vatanen	25	2016	44 71GP	41 198GP	21:19	20:11	$4.88M 4 years	$6.38M 4 years
Brendan Smith	28	2017	14 51GP	19 309GP	19:15	18:01	$4.35M 4 years	$5.54M 4 years
Calvin De Haan	27	2018	30 33GP	22 304GP	18:45	19:55	$4.55M 4 years	$5.47M 4 years
*Artem Zub	28	2023	22 95GP	23 142GP	21:11	20:15	$4.50M 4 years	$5.15M 4 years
Connor Murphy	29	2022	25 50GP	18 494GP	22:09	19:06	$4.40M 4 years	$5.09M 4 years
***Josh Manson	27	2018	17 82GP	16 181GP	18:38	18:39	$4.10M 4 years	$4.93M 4 years
Devon Toews	26	2020	34 68GP	33 116GP	20:31	19:26	$4.10M 4 years	$4.80M 4 years
Jake Gardiner	29	2019	40 62GP	36 551GP	21:13	21:21	$4.05M 4 years	$4.75M 4 years
Adam Larsson	29	2021	15 56GP	19 603GP	19:39	20:42	$4.00M 4 years	$4.69M 4 years
**Jake McCabe	28	2021	17 79GP	18 353GP	18:38	19:15	$4.00M 4 years	$4.69M 4 years
Colin Miller	26	2018	41 82GP	31 185GP	19:21	17:22	$3.88M 4 years	$4.66M 4 years
Radko Gudas	26	2016	15 76GP	19 202GP	19:51	18:50	$3.35M 4 years	$4.38M 4 years
Matt Grzelcyk	26	2020	25 68GP	22 197GP	18:04	17:57	$3.69M 4 years	$4.32M 4 years
Joel Edmundson	27	2020	24 68GP	18 337GP	18:27	18:15	$3.50M 4 years	$4.10M 4 years
Cody Ceci	28	2021	26 53GP	21 549GP	18:31	20:46	$3.25M 4 years	$3.81M 4 years
Dylan DeMelo	27	2020	14 59GP	20 269GP	20:09	17:01	$3.00M 4 years	$3.52M 4 years

Based on the comps from Brendan Smith and below, it’s a little difficult to pinpoint where Fabbro’s value would fall. While Fabbro would compare well against some of the comps even towards the upper end of the range ($5.5M adjusted cap hits), his production doesn’t compare as well against some of the comps within it (Devon Toews, Jake Gardiner, Colin Miller), and his career ice time is lower than many of the comps as well.

That said, as a whole, Fabbro is higher than a good chunk of the comps in at least two or three categories. As a result, there’s a good argument that he would still align with the middle to upper-end of this range. Again though, looking at the actual cap hits signed rather than the adjusted cap hits, all of the comps below Sean Durzi signed for less than $5M per year. So we could likely expect Fabbro to be somewhere a little below this mark, but likely still above the $4M mark.

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3 YEARS

A three-year deal would likely be the shortest contract that we could expect for Fabbro. While he doesn’t compare well against Justin Schultz at the top of the table, his numbers would be much more comparable to the majority of other defenders listed, ranging from adjusted cap hits of $3.1M to $5.5M.

Player	Age	First Year of Contract	Signing Year P/82	Career P/82	TOI Season	Career TOI	Contract	On $95.5M Cap
Dante Fabbro	27	2025	31 68GP	21 377GP	20:54	18:36
Justin Schultz	27	2017	54 78GP	38 334GP	20:27	21:21	$5.50M 3 years	$7.00M 3 years
Dmitry Kulikov	27	2017	9 47GP	23 507GP	21:54	20:47	$4.33M 3 years	$5.51M 3 years
*Erik Gudbranson	26	2018	10 37GP	11 376GP	17:42	17:58	$4.00M 3 years	$4.81M 3 years
Brandon Montour	27	2021	30 50GP	31 293GP	20:29	20:34	$3.50M 3 years	$4.10M 3 years
Alexandre Carrier	27	2023	17 43GP	24 144GP	17:53	19:34	$3.50M 3 years	$4.00M 3 years
*Jake Walman	27	2023	20 41GP	15 117GP	19:02	15:51	$3.40M 3 years	$3.89M 3 years
Mackenzie Weegar	26	2020	33 45GP	20 172GP	20:07	16:58	$3.25M 3 years	$3.81M 3 years
Ryan Graves	25	2020	31 69GP	27 95GP	18:57	16:48	$3.17M 3 years	$3.71M 3 years
*Matt Roy	26	2021	23 25GP	21 120GP	19:32	18:12	$3.15M 3 years	$3.69M 3 years
Mark Pysyk	25	2017	17 82GP	17 207GP	18:34	17:51	$2.73M 3 years	$3.48M 3 years
Vladislav Gavrikov	25	2020	21 69GP	21 69GP	18:59	18:59	$2.80M 3 years	$3.28M 3 years
Carson Soucy	26	2020	21 55GP	20 58GP	15:38	15:35	$2.75M 3 years	$3.22M 3 years
Andrew Peeke	25	2023	15 82GP	15 115GP	21:29	19:36	$2.75M 3 years	$3.15M 3 years
Gustav Forsling	25	2021	32 43GP	22 165GP	19:57	17:49	$2.67M 3 years	$3.13M 3 years

Again though, other than Schultz, all other actual cap hits from the comps above would come below the $4.5M mark. Fabbro does have better numbers than the majority of comps listed, so it’s likely we would see him towards the upper end of the cap hits signed above, but he’d likely still come in lower than on a longer deal, likely around the $4M mark.

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Projection

Fabbro’s next contract is likely to land between three and six years, with projections below.

Term	Projected Cap hit	Maximum Cap Hit	Minimum Cap Hit
6 years	$5.50M	$6.00M	$5.00M
5 years	$5.10M	$5.50M	$5.00M
4 years	$4.50M	$5.00M	$4.00M
3 years	$4.00M	$5.00M	$3.50M