Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Mirtle, Mo, and Milan...An Arbitration Intersection

James Mirtle authored a report in today's Globe and Mail that delved into the mysterious and, it turns out, contentious world of salary arbitration. In the body of the report, there was this narrative of interest to Caps fans...
In the Morrisonn case, the Capitals were seeking a salary of $1.1-million in arbitration and used six other young defencemen as comparables: Milan Jurcina, Josh Gorges, Lukas Krajicek, Mark Stuart, Garnet Exelby and Mike Komisarek.

On behalf of the player, the National Hockey League Players' Association asked for $2.8-million and used Trevor Daley, Tim Gleason, Fedor Tyutin, Henrik Tallinder, Anton Volchenkov and Komisarek as comparisons.

Note that the club used the comparable of Milan Jurcina. The careful reader might note that this season is Jurcina's last under his current contract ($881,250 cap hit; $912,500 salary). Does this mean that the negotiations start at a foor of $1.975 million (Morrisonn's new deal)? The club views them as "comparable," although the arbitrator argued that the appropriate compensation for Morrisonn should be higher. Could make for an interesting situation next summer...if Jurcina is still here.

3 comments:

Dan, Jr. said...

Thanks for focusing on the important aspects of this arbitration decision. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Jurcina go the next time the Cap's make a trade. He did play well at times, and some of his stats may look decent. However, I think we're looking for more consistancy out of a player with that kind of earnings potential.

Anonymous said...

Jurcina is the true enigma of this team. Many would have it that title belonged to Alexander Semin. I think Semin has more than proved his value. Jurcina, seems to have huge mental lapses in his game. He is either pretty good --- or pretty bad. If Jurcina finds his "game", he would be very valuable.

Morrisonn -- a good serviceable guy but he needs a great year to get in the $3M a year club.

Anonymous said...

Mike Green once told me that Juice has the hardest shot on the team. Why does he never shoot?! He also needs to consistently use his size more. He's dominant when he decides to throw the old body around.