Jack McBain se dirige vers l’arbitrage
The NHLPA announces that Coyotes center Jack McBain has filed for salary arbitration.
Tucson's Ivan Prosvetov & Nathan Smith were also eligible.— Craig Morgan (@CraigSMorgan) July 5, 2023
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Numark105
@Coyotes de l'Arizona
3 Comments
Just like any other circumstance in life that ends up in court, no one really knows how this will shake out.
That being said, not the end of the world. Strictly looking at contractual comparables, McBain is likely in the ball park of Isac Lunderstrom from Anaheim. Lunderstrom signed his current contract in July 2022 for 2 years at an AAV of 1.8M just before going to arbitration. The season leading up to this deal Lunderstrom went .36 ppg, but was relatively unimpressive before that. McBain was .32 ppg this season. Both guys are similarly sized centers, and similar age.
All in all, wouldnt be surprising to see something near the 2×2 mark. The only real concern is that, in certain circumstances, arbitration can destroy the relationship between a player and their team. After all, the team will go in and argue exactly why a player DOESNT deserve the raise they want, and this can tarnish a lot of relationships.
Edit: it must also be noted that arbitration is going to get strange the next couple of years. With the salary cap expected to seriously increase over the next 2-3 years, many players’ camps are referencing the projected salary cap when making their case (intelligently so), not just the current one. It is entirely possible that McBain’s camp is referencing the idea that the Cap may be as high as $95m in the next year or so. So if he is asking for $2M now, about 2.3% of the cap, $2M with a heightened cap may be closer to only 2.0%.
One of my favorites last year. Hope it gets sorted amicably, team is on a tight budget.
This doesn’t shock me. McBain signing with us was significantly influenced by looking for ways to burn years off his ELC and get him as much of a payday as he can get as soon as possible. He’s a depth center who would be a 4th liner on good team, plays a heavy game (which is hard on the body), and he has probably spent a little too long in college in the greater scheme of things. You can’t blame him for wanting to get as much money as can be made available to a player of this archetype – many of whom have to forage for league minimum deals after turning 30.
I wouldn’t worry too much about this being a wedge between him and the team. I don’t really see our relationship with him being terribly important, nor did I ever expect him to stick around long term.