When Ryan Johansen was going through a nasty public contract negotiation with the Blue Jackets in 2014, his teammates mostly stayed out of the fray other than to support Johansen and shake their heads at the “business side of hockey.”



It was much the same last fall when Josh Anderson’s contract stalemate dragged well into training camp.



What’s happening now with Artemi Panarin is not a contract negotiation but an unwillingness to negotiate a contract with the Blue Jackets. It is the business side of hockey, yes, but the player is hinting that he might like to do business elsewhere when he is an unrestricted free agent after the 2018-19 season.



Blue Jackets players are in an awkward spot on this one. They’d like Panarin to stick around Columbus, obviously, because he makes the Blue Jackets a more dangerous offensive club.



But they also know better than to stick their noses in somebody else’s business, especially...