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August Update: Mailbag, RFA Updates, What to expect this month

August 6, 2022, 11:25 AM ET [6 Comments]
Jacob Billington
Winnipeg Jets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Welcome back everybody, today's piece is going to be a bit different. There isn't much of a theme to today, as the news in the Jets organization has been pretty quiet as of late.

The first thing I want to talk about is the upcoming mailbag. As you know, my last 3 pieces have been in collaboration with Spinorama Hockey. We are going to team up for the next mailbag. Leave any questions you have about hockey, Winnipeg, or anything you would like either in the comments, or you can DM me on Twitter. We will each provide a seperate answer to the questions. Try and come up with some creative, trivial, or historic questions, or whatever you want answered! We will work towards having this released within two weeks, giving you lots of time to come up with questions.

Another thing I want to talk about, is some upcoming pieces I will be releasing. Would you be intersted in my rankings on top-10 ____ (example; top-10 forwards, centers, defenseman, coaches, etc) and ranking logos, jerseys etc? Let me know down below. I will be taking this month to look at some more engaging pieces, as in the dry-spell of the hockey year, we are all itching to talk some hockey. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

RFA Updates

The Winnipeg Jets have Mason Appleton and David Gustafsson unsigned. While I don't see much cause for concern yet, these are two players projected to be in the NHL come October.

Appleton, 26, is pending his arbitration hearing. For those who are unfamiliar with arbitration, it is a fairly simple concept. Appleton is set to have his hearing on August 11th. Both Appleton and the Jets have, or will, submit their offer for a contract, and a neutral party, the arbitrator, will hear the case as for why each party is offering their dollar amount. Each arbitration case has the of=pportunity to settle on a negotiated contract up to the time of the arbitration hearing.

So far, Yakov Trenin and the Nashville Predators are the only case that has made it to their hearing, while Lawson Crouse (ARI, Aug. 8), Maxime Lajoie (CAR, Aug. 9), Pavel Zacha (BOS, Aug. 11), Mason Appleton (WPG, Aug. 11) and Jake Walman (DET, Aug. 11) are the only players left for their hearing. 20 of the 21 cases that have been resolved so far have come before the hearing, with the 5 others still awaiting.

I will use Trenin's case as an example. The Nashville Predators elected to offer a contract of $1,350,000, while Trenin's camp was looking for $2,400,000. The arbitrator heard both parties case, and decided on $1,700,000 as a fair contract value. Once the value is set, the NHL club, Nashville in this case, has the option of it being a 1 or 2 year contract. This is rougly how I expect Appleton's hearing to go, should it make it to arbitration.

David Gustafsson did not file, so he will continue to be an RFA until a deal is reached.

Some other news in terms of the Jets and some signings, we heard from Ken Weibe that the Jets made offers to Danton Heinen and Calle Jarnkrok. He mentions Evan Rodrigues, who is coming off of a 19 goal, 43 point campaign, as a suitor for a Jets offer, as the Jets still seem to be looking to add up front.

Weibe also mentions that newly hired Head Coach, Rick Bowness, will likely try and find room for Dylan Samberg and Ville Heinola in the lineup. Could this mean he is looking for management to move on from some defenseman such as Brendan Dillon and Nate Schmidt? We will see.

That's all for today, this was just a quick update on some things, look out for a few pices coming this week, and again, let me know your questions for the mailbag with Spinorama Hockey, and your thoughts on the proposed blog ideas.

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great day!

Jacob
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