One of the biggest blunders of last season by the Nashville Predators front office was waiving Dante Fabbro, so there was a glimmer of hope that the right shot defenseman would hit free agency and possibly come back.
However, the Columbus Blue Jackets have wisely decided to give Fabbro a new contract before free agency becomes possible, signing Fabbro to a four-year deal worth a total value of $16.5 million.
FOUR MORE YEARS OF FABS! 🥳
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) June 29, 2025
We’ve signed defenseman Dante Fabbro to a 4-year contract extension!
📝 https://t.co/JJ0V8aKruO pic.twitter.com/sPAw1y1xlQ
Smart move by the Blue Jackets as they pulled out the potential from Fabbro that some Predators fans, including myself, saw in him all along. But the Predators front office didn't see it that way, and instead waived him back in November of 2024. It was a baffling decision then, and it will forever be a baffling decision to make by the Barry Trotz front office.
I didn't buy too much into the fantasy that the Blue Jackets were going to let Fabbro slip away like the Predators did. Fabbro has never had more than 26 points in an NHL season, and he did that just this past season after joining the Blue Jackets for 62 games. He had zero points for Nashville in six games before being waived.
It's not just about the scoring for Fabbro. His main purpose on the ice is being a smart stay at home defenseman who blocks shots and is usually in the right place at the right time to defend. He had 136 blocked shots for Columubs, a career high.
Dante Fabbro, signed 4x$4.1M by CBJ, is a top four two-way defenceman. Not quick or physical but capable of shouldering a heavy defensive workload and transition role to take the heat off a talented partner. Preds held him personally responsible for a 90 PDO, to their peril. #CBJ pic.twitter.com/Yt25iZ0gLe
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) June 29, 2025
The Predators, as JFresh points out in the tweet above, idiotically assumed that Fabbro was a lower value player based on things going on around him that were either bad luck or not his fault. Now he's on a better structered team, and he thrives. He's not the only example of recent memory that leaves the Predators and blossoms somewhere else.
Fabbro also being a right shot defenseman is really why I was trying to be hopelessly optimistic that he could come back to Nashville and we just give the guy a new sports car for being idiots and letting him go to begin with.
You look at Nashville's right side of the defense and it is thin. No animosity meant towards any of these guys, but the Predators currently have listed as right shot defenseman as Justin Barron and Nick Blankenburg. Jeremy Lauzon can play both sides as can Roman Josi. But pure right shot defensemen, they have very little. Fabbro would be a godsend.
If Fabbro was coming back to Nashville after being claimed as a free agent, he'd be instantly back on my top pairing with Josi. I'd give him similar to what Columbus is signing him for at $4.1M AAV. I'd actually go higher than Columbus and push $5M to have Fabbro back, but that's just me.
I'm happy for Fabbro, though. He was thrown into big minutes for the Predators very early in his career. He made his NHL debut for the Predators in the 2018-19 season at age 20 after being the 17th-overall draft pick by the Predators in 2016 out of Boston University.
It's easy to forget because Fabbro has been around so long already that he's only 27-years-old. He is entering his prime you would expect, and Columbus is enjoying the rewards off of the ineptitude of Nashville's front office.