The Puck Stops Here
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Fear Of Arbitration
by PuckStopsHere on 03/09/10 at 11:22 AM ET
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One under-reported theme that existed in several of the trade deadline deals is that teams are afraid of salary arbitration. In the current climate of a stagnant salary cap, you might not be able to afford a player who goes to salary arbitration and wins big. Teams may be forced to walk away from some of the salary arbitration offers.
This partially explains the trading of Denis Grebeshkov, Ian White and Wojtech Wolski. All are eligible for salary arbitration and all could receive relatively large salaries in the process.
Denis Grebeshkov was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Nashville Predators for a second round draft pick. He is going to be a restricted free agent this summer and is coming off of a 39 point season on the Oilers defence. This has him earning $3.15 million this year. Although his offensive totals have been down this year, there is fear that an arbitration win could increase his salary and that is a significant reason in why Edmonton chose to move him.
Ian White was traded from Toronto to Calgary in the Dion Phaneuf deal. Some have pointed out that he is outscoring Phaneuf on defence so far this season. It is an attempt to justify the trade from a Calgary perspective, but given the fact that Phaneuf is the younger of the two and a former Norris Trophy nominee (something White cannot reasonably expect to ever do), that is over-reaching for an justification. Toronto may have been willing to part with White in part because he is also salary arbitration eligible. If the idea of a direct comparison between he and Phaneuf (who makes $6.5 million a year) takes hold, White is due for a significant raise. Even without that meme taking hold, White will get a few million a year in an arbitration award.
Wojtech Wolski was traded from Colorado to Phoenix for Peter Mueller and Kevin Porter. Wolski has 50 points already this season and might be given a significant raise from his current $2.8 million salary in an arbitration award.
When the salary cap is stagnant (or possibly dropping) in today`s economic climate, teams are worried about their salary cap hits. The uncertainty of salary arbitration is something teams want to avoid. Thus players, who are a step below star level and thus expendable, were a relatively commonly traded group in trade deadline deals. A team has a fear that they may be forced to walk away from the arbitration award that will be coming and would rather trade the player now and let somebody else worry about the arbitration process.
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Tags: Denis+Grebeshkov, Ian+White, Wojtech+Wolski,
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