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.