Schenn Arbitration Case
With Brayden Schenn's contract arbitration case scheduled for tomorrow (July 25), the player is seeking a one-season award for $5.5 million. Philadelphia Flyers general manager Ron Hextall submitted a two-season award proposal at a $4.3095 cap hit ($4.25 million real-dollar salary in 2016-17 and $4.369 million in 2017-18).
What you need to know about both sides' filings:
1) The numbers disparity, while steep in this case, is strictly standard procedure. One hundred percent of the time, teams set the salary bar considerably lower than they would actually be willing to go in an 11th-hour settlement. Ditto the player's side in setting the salary higher than know he can get in a negotiated settlement.
This is done to throw a bit of fear into the other side, for risk of losing the case if negotiation fails and the other side presents a more convincing case to the arbitrator. Since it's a "column A or column B" procedure and decision for the arbitrator, both sides try to give the other some pause for concern.
2) All arbitration filings are either for one-year or two-year awards. It does NOT mean that either or both sides are not hoping for a longer-term agreement. This is procedural. If this case were to go arbitration and the Flyers won, Schenn would be an unrestricted free agent upon its completion.
Tactically, it is as if the Flyers are saying, "We are not convinced yet that Schenn has 'arrived' at the next level but if he proves it with another 25-goal, 60-point-vicinity season, we will negotiate a long-term extension next summer to kick in for 2018-19."
The Schenn camp is saying, "Brayden's 2015-16 season was the real deal, and we both know it. So pay him now or we file arbitration next summer for another raise and you either pay more or trade him before he walks as an unrestricted free agent."
Actually, the most notable thing about the Schenn filing is that it is not set at a dollar figure that the Flyers would even think of walking away from (i.e., making him an unrestricted free agent) if they were to lose in arbitration. It's workable even in their worst-case scenario.
3) Most arbitration cases, even the complex ones, settle by the 11th hour without a hearing. Neither side wants to risk losing in arbitration nor do they want to go the hearing itself. To get an agreement here, one side is probably going to have to move more than 50 percent in salary. This can be tinkered with a bit over the length of a negotiated contract.
While there is clearly a lot of negotiating to do between today and the hearing set for tomorrow, it's not so much the discrepancy between the numbers submitted to the arbitrator but a matter of how much flexibility and creativity will be shown between the two sides. That's the X-factor here, because the vicinity of a $5 million cap hit seems to be the magic number here.
If the case actually does go to the arbitrator, both sides will have 90 minutes to make their case. A good rundown of the types of evidence that, by NHL rule, are permissible and inadmissible in arbitration can be
found here.
Typically, the most contentious part of a team presentation to an arbitrator falls not along statistical lines or the hand-picked comparison players that each side puts forth to justify their proposed salary, but rather in how "the overall contribution of the player to the competitive success or failure of his club in the preceding season" is presented. This can be psychologically damaging, because the team essentially has to argue that the player is not as important to the team as he thinks he is but also, potentially, to present his shortcomings as a player and even to assign blame for being part of the problem.
Can it be done respectfully and professionally? Yes. But it can also go off the rails such as NHL arbitration history's most notorious case, when then-Islanders GM Mike Milbury reduced goalie Tommy Salo to tears by going off on a red-faced rant about the player's lack of skill, conditioning, character and guts and saying, almost in so many words, that Salo was lucky to even be in the NHL. After something like that, working together again can be tough.
More commonly, the two sides engage in a bit of deliberate exaggeration to prove a point. A player's regular linemates will be talked up (if beneficial to do so) in an effort to show that it was the linemates that were responsible for its productivity, and that other, lower-paid players in the same situation produced at about the same or even higher rate.
**********
2016 Flyers Alumni Fantasy Camp
The 2nd annual Flyers Alumni Fantasy Camp will be held Aug. 19 -22, 2016 in Atlantic City. The Alumni have assembled an excellent group of instructor/coaches this year, including Hockey Hall of Famers Bernie Parent and Mark Howe, along with the likes of Danny Briere and Flyers assistant coach Ian Laperriere.
For more information,
click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»