Between a nail-biting final round at the British Open and waiting for Jacob Trouba's arbitration ruling to come down, it has been an exciting Sunday morning in the world of sports. No post-World Cup letdown for me!
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Tiger's name at the top of the leaderboard when I woke up. Even though he faltered a bit down the stretch, a Top 10 finish for Woods is great for golf. Maybe he really can win another major.
Arbitration season is usually a lot like offer-sheet season in the NHL, filled with speculation but very little real action. But this year has seen the highest number of filings in the six years since the current CBA came into effect.
I did a rundown of the big stories to watch for Forbes on Friday:
We got a whopper of a story on Day 1, when the Winnipeg Jets and Trouba went through their hearing. The arbitrator has now issued his ruling after the Jets asked for $4 million a season and Trouba's camp asked for $7.
That's a one-year deal—and Trouba has two years before he reaches unrestricted free agency. The Jets can walk away from the award if they choose but the money is basically market value, I'd say. The arbiter's award gives the Jets one more year to try to lock down something long-term before there's any risk of losing him as a UFA.
The Minnesota Wild are another team with limited cap space. They had two important players file for arbitration after great seasons—Matt Dumba and Jason Zucker. New GM Paul Fenton got Dumba under contract on Saturday with a five-year deal on a $6 million cap hit. That currently leaves Fenton with just $5.6 million in available space for Zucker, whose hearing is scheduled for July 28.
Teams can go up to 10 percent over the salary cap during the offseason. The Wild already have 24 players signed even before inking Zucker, although four of those players are waiver exempt. Roster space can be made fairly easily; cap space, not as much. It'll be interesting to see if Fenton can also settle with Zucker—and if he ends up needing to make a trade to free up cap space.
More defensemen are up next on the docket.
Brett Kulak of Calgary is up Monday. He doesn't have much of a case after he successfully cleared waivers on Friday.
On Tuesday, it's Brandon Montour of Anaheim.
Looking ahead to Wednesday, Joel Edmundson of St. Louis is scheduled along with forward Brandon Tanev of Winnipeg.
It's crazy to think that the Canucks' Derrick Pouliot was drafted by Pittsburgh right between Dumba (seventh overall in 2012) and Trouba (ninth). Still working to prove himself at the NHL level, Pouliot signed for $1.1 million on June 26 after he lost his arbitration rights when didn't receive a qualifying offer from the Canucks.
But hey—Pouliot's still in the NHL! After being chosen first overall by Edmonton that year, Nail Yakupov has now decamped for Russia after six NHL seasons. He signed with SKA St. Petersburg on July 3 after collecting 136 points in 350 NHL games.
With Pouliot and Stecher under contract, the only RFA left on the Canucks' to-do list is forward Jake Virtanen, who has played through his entry-level contract.
Back in May, stats guru Matt Cane created a salary chart for every 2018 UFA and RFA based on his metrics. It's pretty fascinating to look at as it's getting filled in.
For the Canucks, Cane had Pouliot on a two-year deal at $1.176 million—wrong term but money-wise, not too far off where he landed. Cane projected low on Stecher with one year at $1.7 million, but looking at other players in that ballpark, players in that range might be some of the toughest to pin down. Andreas Athanasiou and Philip Danault, for instance, got way more money, while someone like Ryan Hartman got way less.
So, for what it's worth, Cane projects that Virtanen will sign a two-year deal with a $1.14 million AAV. There aren't many other young forwards in the same range as Virtanen on Cane's chart. Though they were projected very differently when they were drafted, Jake's basic career numbers (140 games played, 34 points) are actually pretty similar to the recently-traded Vinnie Hinostroza, now of the Arizona Coyotes. Hinostroza's two years older, drafted 169th in 2012. He has 39 points in 106 career games.
Hinostroza signed a two-year deal with a cap hit of $1.5 million a season with Chicago on June 15, before he was traded.
For a different point of view,
Click here to check out the players who rank on Jake's "similarity scores" at Hockey Reference. These scores look at players across time frames—and the player names really drive home that Virtanen's career outcome is still very unclear.
At the high end, he's being compared to players like Ryan Kesler, Pavol Demitra and Pit Martin but at the low end, you've got names like Pavel Brendl (drafted fourth overall in 1999, 28 points in 77 NHL games) and Teemu Pulkinen (drafted 110th in 2010, 22 points in 83 NHL games, signed with Dinamo Minsk of the KHL on July 18th).
Maybe Joel Armia is a realistic comparable? Like Virtanen, he was a first-round draft pick—chosen 16th overall by Buffalo in 2011. And he's a power forward with some physicality in his game—listed at 6'3" and 205 pounds, while Jake is listed at 6'1", 229 pounds.
Armia is three years older than Virtanen, and is just starting to find his footing in the NHL. He didn't even leave Finland for North America till he was 20, then spent basically two full years in the AHL before splitting his time between the Manitoba Moose and the Winnipeg Jets in 2015-16.
He put up 10 points in 43 games that year, then got 19 points in 57 games in 2016-17 and 29 points in 79 games last year, before being traded to Montreal as the sweetener in Winnipeg's Steve Mason cap-dump deal.
Armia just came out of his entry-level deal this summer. Montreal signed him to a one-year contract with a cap hit of $1.85 million on July 13.
Though Virtanen is three years younger, I'd say in the big picture, he's about a year behind Armia, developmentally. His progression hasn't been as linear but if Jake continues to evolve, I think we could see these two players in similar roles next season. I'd consider Armia's salary to be at the high end of what Jake may sign for. I think a one-year deal is likely as both sides will still want to see how he progresses; two years, max.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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