News: 2023 Arbitration Thread

[ToDavid]

Samsonov at $3.55m.

 

[Altimus]

 

[EbonyRaptor]

Kurashev signs $2.25M x 2 years and will still be RFA after deal.

I like it.

 

[Realm]

With the Samsonov ruling in, I wonder where that puts Gus? Samsonov was 1 year from UFA and Gus is 2 years. Thinking around $3M for 1 year or $3.5 for 2 years on him.

 

[Rob Brown]

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

 

[herashak]

Swayman nearly 100 games and a .920 SV%, worth 2M, lol goalies getting no respect

 

[wintersej]

Swayman nearly 100 games and a .920 SV%, worth 2M, lol goalies getting no respect

Oettinger's first season of his deal was at 2.4m. Oettinger had 77 career games but had also been a primary starter. Swayman has 88 career games and slightly better stats, but also played in front of a better team and didn't get most of the starts against the leagues best teams. Oettinger also had vastly better playoff stats. It's a bit low, but not as much as Swayman is high. Guys that have never started more than 39 games in a season aren't known for getting huge checks.

 

[GordonGraham]

Swayman nearly 100 games and a .920 SV%, worth 2M, lol goalies getting no respect

Id be very surprised if he gets anything over 3

 

[theslatcher]

Swayman nearly 100 games and a .920 SV%, worth 2M, lol goalies getting no respect

He's getting the same amount of respect as every other player reaching arbitration.

As usual: team goes under, player goes over. Arbitration lands around the mean.

 

[mouser]

Id be very surprised if he gets anything over 3

There's a strong argument for Swayman getting more than Samsonov's $3.55m. Swayman has produced higher results more consistently, while only playing slightly less games than Samsonov.

For example

Swayman's three seasons: 88GP (82GS), 2.25GAA, .920%
Samsonov's most recent three seasons: 105GP (97GS), 2.68GAA, .906%

Ranking among goaltenders over the past three seasons (min 60 games)
Swayman; GAA #2, Sv% #6
Samsonov: GAA #20, sv% #30

Playoffs:
Samsonov 15GS, 3.06GAA, .902%
Swayman: 6GS, 2.79GAA, .901%

 

[mouser]

Oettinger's first season of his deal was at 2.4m. Oettinger had 77 career games but had also been a primary starter. Swayman has 88 career games and slightly better stats, but also played in front of a better team and didn't get most of the starts against the leagues best teams. Oettinger also had vastly better playoff stats. It's a bit low, but not as much as Swayman is high. Guys that have never started more than 39 games in a season aren't known for getting huge checks.

All three years of Oettinger's contract are RFA years. There's no reason to use the first year's $2.4m salary over the $4m AAV for comparison purposes. Especially when any Swayman arbitration award will be for two years I presume.

 

[wintersej]

All three years of Oettinger's contract are RFA years. There's no reason to use the first year's $2.4m salary over the $4m AAV for comparison purposes. Especially when any Swayman arbitration award will be for two years I presume.

I hear you on the second year that's a solid point, but the idea of using the AAV of an escalating deal that goes longer than 2 years doesn't really make sense either. The first two years average out to 3.6m. If I am Boston I am arguing 3.6m is the value of someone that puts up Swayman level stats but that starters make more in the NHL than backups. Saros also put up great numbers as a backup with a .924 over 48 games. He only got 1.5m (1.57m in todays cap) but he only started 23 games in his last season to Swayman's 33. Oettinger had 46. Swayman had 10 more starts than Saros and 13 less than Oettinger. Feels like a salary in between them makes sense. What is in between 1.57 and 3.6? 2m.

 

[mouser]

I hear you on the second year that's a solid point, but the idea of using the AAV of an escalating deal that goes longer than 2 years doesn't really make sense either. The first two years average out to 3.6m. If I am Boston I am arguing 3.6m is the value of someone that puts up Swayman level stats but that starters make more in the NHL than backups. Saros also put up great numbers as a backup with a .924 over 48 games. He only got 1.5m (1.57m in todays cap) but he only started 23 games in his last season to Swayman's 33. Oettinger had 46. Swayman had 10 more starts than Saros and 13 less than Oettinger. Feels like a salary in between them makes sense. What is in between 1.57 and 3.6? 2m.

I think it will be difficult to convince the arbitrator that a Saros comparison should be weighed heavily.

Prior season / prior two seasons / prior three seasons

Games started:
Saros: 23/42/43
Swayman: 33/72/82

Minutes played:
Saros: 1497/2697/2755
Swayman: 2013/4513/5115

Swayman has almost 2x the sample size of Saros.


Edit: I would also note while Saros is eligible to be used as a RFA comparison he did not have salary arbitration rights when he signed the $1.5m AAV contract.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

So already 3 cases will be determined by an arbitrator.

 

[Petes2424]

While a player can’t “reject” an arbitration award the player isn't required to sign the arbitration awarded contract. Player is still free to sign in another league such one of the European leagues.

The player would not be allowed to play in the NHL again until they either (a) sign a contract in some future season honoring the arbitration award, or (b) the players rights (and thus arbitration award obligation) are renounced by the team.

edit:

Additional detail: in this scenario the NHL rights to the player can still be traded and the arbitration award obligation travels with the Player rights to the new Team. So if a player went to arbitration with Team A and refused to sign the deal, Team A could later trade the player rights to Team B and the player would still be required to sign the arbitration award contract with Team B to play in the NHL. Neither Team A or B can ignore the arbitration award and sign the player to a different contract without first renouncing their NHL rights, making the player a UFA.

I’m pretty sure this is what happened with Jiri Hudler around 2009ish.

In his case though, he decided to go to the KHL for 2 years before the arbitration ruling even came down, because the offer in Russia was more than the ruling was going to be no matter what.

So he went to the KHL, played for that high salary for two years, and then had to take a pay cut to return to the NHL. Having to play for two years at that old arbitration award. I wanna say he was making $5 million a year in Russia and came back to about half of that here.

He had no choice though. He owed Detroit those 2 years.

 

[Realm]

Who is the goalie that gets more, Swayman or Gus?

 

[mouser]

Who is the goalie that gets more, Swayman or Gus?

Good question.

If we just look at 2022-23, Min 30GP
- Gustavsson 39GP, 37GS, 2.10GAA (#2), .931sv (#2), TOI 2310
- Swayman 37GP, 33GS, 2.27GAA (#3), .920sv (#4), TOI 2012

If we look at at 2021-22 and 2022-23 combined, (using 57GP min as that's the # of games Gustavsson played) we get
- Gustavsson, 57GP, 53GS, 2.55 GAA (#8), .918sv (#5), TOI 3358
- Swayman, 78GP, 72GS, 2.34 GAA (#4), .917sv (#7), TOI 4403


Both goaltenders were elite last season, with Gustavsson having a small edge over Swayman in 2022-23.

If we combine the past two seasons then Swayman has the advantage over Gustavsson. Notably the difference in GP and TOI sample sizes.


How much would the arbitrator weigh those differences? While keeping in mind the team and player agents still have to pick and choose which comparable player examples they present in the hearing to the arbitrator.

 

[Koivu11]

 

[Sideline]

I want to find a girl that thinks as much of me as Troy Terry's agent thinks of him.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

I want to find a girl that thinks as much of me as Troy Terry's agent thinks of him.

They always come in with a high ask, but it's not like 8M is super out of line. If he signs a long term deal, it's probably safe to assume it will be in the range of 7M. He's a legitimate first line winger.

 

[DuckDuckGetz]

Terry has been our best offensive forward for the last two years while also being one of, if not our best two-way forward.

The guy will absolutely soar when our team isn’t complete ass

 

[Ace]

I want to find a girl that thinks as much of me as Troy Terry's agent thinks of him.

If you look at these two numbers and think the player’s ask is the one that’s out of line…I don‘t know what to tell you.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Seems like a good way to tarnish a relationship by Anaheim.