The Puck Stops Here
Peter Regin’s Value Contract
by PuckStopsHere on 07/30/10 at 09:16 AM ET
Comments (1)
Last year Peter Regin a rookie with the Ottawa Senators scored 29 points in the regular season in limited playing time and with limited power play time while playing against relatively weak opposition. In the playoffs when he started to get a larger role, he tied for the team lead in playoff goals with three. He showed some very good signs that he might develop into a top player, especially his high Corsi rating which when adjusted for team and zone start effects finished 16th in the league. That is quite an accomplishment given that all the players above him had significantly more ice time.
A player like that should expect to see a significant raise in a contract year. Peter Regin filed for salary arbitration likely expecting a significant raise from his entry level deal that had paid him $620,000 plus bonuses last season. However, before his arbitration case could be heard he blinked and signed a two year contract with a $1 million a year salary cap hit.
This contract makes Peter Regin one of the best values in the NHL. Only bit players make $1 million or less on their contracts beyond the entry level. Regin is one of the best young players on the Ottawa Senators. It is realistic to expect to 50 or 60 point season to happen during this contract as he is given more power play time. It is realistic that given his strong puck possession numbers as a rookie, he will not be a liability in an increased role.
Teams win by signing players to “value contracts”, where there is a good bet that the player will well exceed what he is being paid. The Stanley Cup winners since the lockout have all had several players in this situation. This contract is clearly good for Ottawa and is far less than I imagine any arbitrator would have awarded.
As for Regin, he only gets one shot at an NHL career and there is no likelihood that Ottawa shows any loyalty to him when the going gets tough. He should have gone to arbitration for a bigger contract that would be closer to his market value.
The arbitration process is not perfect. It can hurt the relationship between players and the team by airing all dirty laundry (and some imagined dirty laundry that might BS an arbitrator) in public. Generally arbitrators are hesitant to give players significant raises regardless of value - for example the $2.2 million award to Blake Wheeler appears to be well under what he could get on the open market (Manny Malhotra signed for more than that). However it is clear to me that Peter Regin should have been given quite a bit more than what he signed for.
Peter Regin will likely be among the most underpaid players in the league in his next contract. Ottawa is lucky to have him so cheap. Will they manage to surround him with a good enough core to have his cheap contract help them out in a Stanley Cup run?
Filed in: | The Puck Stops Here | Permalink
Tags: Ottawa+Senators, Peter+Regin,
Comments
Add a Comment
Please limit embedded image or media size to 575 pixels wide.
Add your own avatar by joining Kukla's Korner, or logging in and uploading one in your member control panel.
Captchas bug you? Join KK or log in and you won't have to bother.
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Most Recent Blog Posts
New Jersey Devils Make The Finals
Los Angeles Kings Make The Stanley Cup Finals
Another Potentially Important Signing
World Hockey Championships: Medal Round
About The Puck Stops Here
The Puck Stops Here was founded during the 2004/05 lockout as a place to rant about hockey. The original site contains over 1000 posts, some of which were also published on FoxSports.com.
Who am I?
A diehard hockey fan.
Why am I blogging?
I want to.
Why are you reading it?
???
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Donate to Kukla’s Korner
In NHL salary arbitration, the contracts signed by UFAs are not to be considered by the arbitrator. Also, I believe Gabe from behindthenethockey told us that UFA salaries are on average 20% more than RFA salaries for the same performance. So Manny Malhotra would likely get less than Wheeler’s $2.2M if he was an RFA. Another notable fact is that Peter Regin signed a two-year contract, which most arbitration awards (if not all, I’m not sure) are 1-year contracts.
I don’t watch the Senators much so I am not informed enough to have an opinion of Peter Regin. But I certainly would not only use adjusted Corsi to predict his scoring performances in the upcoming two seasons. After all, it’s a team game and whether a player scores a lot of points is not only a matter of the player’s skills; his linemates and his coach have a lot of influence on that. Especially in this case, Regin played against weak opponents last season as you wrote. What if the coach decides to promote him and he faces tougher opponents in the upcoming seasons? Logging more minutes, playing with better linemates but facing tougher opponents, a player may score more indeed, but will he double his production from roughly 30 points to 60? I would not be so sure. It is realistic that he will not score 60 points during his contract too.
Posted by Kel on 07/30/10 at 10:04 AM ET