You and I both know that Tyler Bertuzzi and the Red Wings made it to salary arbitration today, but between the last CBA and the slightly sketchy wording of the NHL and NHLPA’s Memorandum of Understanding, you may have questions as to where things go from here. That’s where the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan comes in:
Under the NHL’s new collective bargaining agreement, an arbitrator must decide within 48 hours of the hearing’s conclusion. But unlike in years past, the team and the player are no longer permitted to continue negotiating after the session begins.
The arbitrator’s decision will be for a one-year deal, and not necessarily what the team or player submitted; it could be somewhere in between. Bertuzzi will be a restricted free agent again next offseason.
Bertuzzi was the first player to have his case get to the actual arbitration process this season. Sam Reinhart (Buffalo), Ilya Mikheyev (Toronto) and Jake Virtanen (Vancouver), were notable restricted free agents who worked out new contracts with their teams.
Kulfan also notes that Anthony Mantha and Dmytro Timashov remain restricted free agents, though he’s reporting that there are rumblings that Timashov will play in Russia. The last I heard, Timashov, who is a Ukrainian-born Swede, is in fact training with Djurgardens IF in Stockholm, Sweden.
The reason he hasn’t signed with Djurgarden is that the SHL is requiring players who ink deals with their teams to remain there through the duration of the SHL season, regardless of whether the NHL actually gets down to playing this year.
As for Bertuzzi’s ruling, my best bet is that it comes down tomorrow, because I have to take my uncle in for a bone marrow test at Beaumont at 11 AM. I’ll be on the road from about 9 till 3 or 4, though MOONSHOT will be coming with me.
